So that’s about it, nothing much to update. Hopefully I’ll have more to blog about soon.

Dreams are so weird. A few weeks ago I had a dream about this touch screen computer. It was just the touch screen screen, nothing else. The next day information about the iPad was published all over the web and I kind of got goosebumps when I remembered the dream. It was the same concept, although being dream land, mine was so much better. It was a few inches bigger, a little thinner and although it looked nothing like an iPod, it was clear it was made by Apple. It was white or a light silver—kind of like a Macbook—and the border was smaller except with a slightly bigger one at the bottom or right (depending on which way you were holding it). And it was actually a computer, rather than a glorified iPod/ebook reader—but it ran on Windows. It was kind of like a netbook, but flat… more like netpaper*. It was so strange. The last time I remember a dream that “came true” the next day was when I was 7 or 8 years old. There was this supply teacher we sometimes had who had a really shiny face, and this dream was just random things appearing around this whirlpool type thing. She was one of the things that appeared and she stayed longer than the other things. The next day at school our teacher was away and, lo and behold, she was our supply teacher. It was really weird and kind of creepy.
Have you ever had a dream that “came true” in some way?

*Bill Gates, if you’re reading this, get in touch about the Netpaper.

Hellooo. I have reopened, but have not switched to Wordpress (I couldn’t be bothered in the end). Though that wasn’t the actual reason I closed. A family member found my blog through Google and I just didn’t want my offline friends/family knowing about it. I deleted the offending entry and now I don’t appear in the search engine results for those words. I just hope they didn’t bookmark or remember the name of the site.

Anyway, so an update on my failure of a life. My birthday was pretty good. I can;t actually remember what happened on the day but I remember it was nice. I had my party with my brother’s girlfriend, it was a nice evening but I ended up not feeling too good.

I completed NaNoWriMo, yay! Here’s my winner’s badge:

My courses are going pretty well, one actually finishes in a couple of days—I can’t believe how quick the time has gone. They weren’t actually a week apart (see last blog), but a day. I have three essays due in within the next week, which is a little overwhelming when you go from nothing to that. But I think I’m on top of it.

I might be moving in with my brother and his girlfriend, as their ‘roomie’. They only live down the road so it would be ideal. I just hope I can afford the rent, I don’t know if I can yet.

I have opened two new fanlistings and a new site. I say ’site’, but it’s a directory—for doll tutorials: Doll Tutorial Directory. The fanlistings are Read All About It for Mock the Week, and Three Talents for Mr. G, a character from Summer Heights High.

Anyway, at the end of this month I will be starting my first Open University course, then on November 7^th I will be starting the other two. I just looked back through my entries and I haven’t actually blogged about them yet. </idiot>
OK, so I’m going to do three starter/openings courses, just to get me used to studying again, and to get an idea of what they’re like. The first is one to help me with essays, because I was terrible at them at school. That one starts on Oct 31^st. The other two (starting on Nov) are starter courses for law and psychology, so I know which of them I’d like to study further (if at all).
I could have started them all in October, but I thought I’d start one a month earlier so I had a month to get used to doing it. But the actual start dates are just a week apart, so that’s that out of the window.
So they will keep me busy over the next twelve weeks.

I’m also doing NaNoWriMo again this year—my third year. I don’t think I’ll manage to complete the 50k this time around though, but I’ll give it a go.

Oh, and it’s my birthday in November. I may be having a joint “party” (meal) with my brother’s girlfriend, whose birthday is also in November. She suggested it, though really I need to ask her if she still wants to do it.

I’ve started looking for a flat again. Everywhere I’ve found is either a) too expensive, or b) too far. I want to live as close to here as possible so I can still pop round to see my family (though mainly the cats ). I found a perfect place a while ago: quite below my price range but really nice—but I hesitated a bit because it was kind of far, but looking back it wasn’t really. By the time I arranged to view it it had gone.

I wanted to do a black and white “sketch” type layout for a while but never actually got around to do it. Then I was doodling a few weeks ago and drew this cat peering over a bowl, and I thought, “Perfect!” Not only was it a sketch but it was of a cat, and I love cats (zomg really?!). So I copied it, as best I could, in Photoshop and voila!
Admittedly, the actual drawing is miles better. And the title is kind of crappy—I wanted it to look “sketched” but honestly: must try harder. At first I wanted it to be quite neat, but after failing to get it right I settled on going for something rougher. It actually turned out neater when I didn’t try so hard.
I am fairly pleased with the whole thing though.

I have now been approved for three of the fanlistings I applied for, and they’re all up:
ICE FISHING!—for Scottish stand-up comedian Frankie Boyle.
MY Sandwich?!—for series five of Friends.
You BUMDER!—for the sitcom The Inbetweeners.

The whole time they were here, our cats didn’t come in the house. They would come in for food and go back out again, sulking in the garden. Why? Because he was cruel to them. He would push them off things—chairs, walls (in the garden), whatever they were on. He grabbed them and squeezed them, he stamped on them, and he “stroked” them so hard it hurt. He did the same to the dogs but they couldn’t get out so had to suffer. When Diego (the only cat brave enough to come in while they were here) laid near him while he was colouring, he coloured his paw blue—OK, that one is quite funny.
We went to my brother’s house to see his nine-week-old kittens, and he stroked them too hard and chased them about. They were scared to death and stayed under the couch, shaking.
Did his mother tell him off? Of course not. She gently asked him not to do things, and that was it. I told him off more in the week he was here than he had ever been told off in his life.

He also continuously drew on the walls and furniture, and had further tantrums when pens/pencils were taken off him. If anything didn’t go his way, he screamed and my sister would instantly give in to him, no matter what it was.
She “had to” eat her breakfast in the kitchen, because if he saw it he would want some. My mum told her to say “No, you’ve had yours. This is Mummy’s.”, but she said she couldn’t because she’d never said anything like that before and she couldn’t start here.
He played with a soft toy of my (other) sister’s for one day out of the eight they were here, and she decided that he “loved it” and actually bought him one.
She gives him everything he wants, never says no to him, and never tells him off for anything. And thus he is a spoilt brat.

Yesterday, I was watching an episode of Friends with my sister. Rachel, trying to bargain with Chandler over something, said “You give me back my Walkman!”
My sister, who is 13, turned to me and asked “What’s a Walkman?”

I just can’t believe someone—someone who is only eight years younger than me—doesn’t know what a Walkman is. When I was younger a Walkman was amazing. The cassette version. I always wanted one but could never afford one (my parents were a little tight on pocket money). I got one when they were being sold cheap because the CD version had come out.
But my sister knows nothing of this. For her, music is not a physical thing like a CD or cassette, it’s just something you can just download from the Internet and transfer from PC to MP3 player, using a cable. She owns about four CDs.
I own God knows how many (though I do know that they are stacked neatly in alphabetical order by artist, then by order of release :p). I have them all on my MP3 player too, but if it were to ever break I would lose them all if I didn’t own the physical copy.

She makes me feel ancient

My sister is coming to stay with us for a week next month. This means I will get to see my baby niece for the first time, yay! And of course, see my little nephew again. I can’t wait.

I have completely revamped my hand drawn doll site. I’m now using Wordpress, I’ve re-shaded my bases, it’s all just so much better.
I have also opened a new site, a pixel one. Please visit and comment.

My unborn niece I blogged about in my last entry (wow, it’s been over a month) was born today. She was born at 6:10 AM this morning and my brother-in-law had to deliver her in the back of the car on the way to the hospital. She was 6lb 6oz, I think.
My mum, dad and sister were supposed to be going down there to visit so my mum could be at the birth, but it’s a little late now. They’re still going down to visit though. I’ll be staying here alone—five glorious days to myself! I’m gutted I won’t be seeing my niece though.

Yes, it’s true, I’m still alive. Sorry I haven’t updated (she says, like she has disappointed regular visitors ). I’ve had some stuff going on in my personal life and everything’s kind of been put on hold, I doubt I’ll even be moving out this year.
However, I do plan to start studying at the Open University. I can’t go to a “normal” college/university, so this is the best I can do right now. I know I mention going to college, but I only go for one hour a week (although that has currently stopped due to the aforementioned personal issues). I want to study English (though I’d rather learn about the actual English language and creative writing as opposed to literature (me + essays = -_-)). I also want to study maths and psychology or law. I don’t know which I’d like to do out of the two. I’ve always been interested in psychology, but more recently law has started to interest me. Maybe I could end up doing both.
I also would quite like to do Greek and Latin, and I considered web design. But I don’t really want to learn to use Dreamweaver, when I’m used to just typing out codes.

I’m running the Race for Life marathon this year. Well, when I say “run”, I actually mean “walk”. It’s on my dad’s birthday, so he’ll be spending that cheering me and a few other family members on. It starts at 11am and you have to be there at least an hour early. I don’t get up ’til between 10-11.

I don’t know if I already mentioned this, but my sister is pregnant again. She’s expecting a little girl at the end of May. She had a 4D ultrasound scan in February, which she took us all to. And I have some pics:

My little niece, as a six-month-old foetus. She’s sticking her tongue out in the second one. She wouldn’t move her arm from the side of her head the whole time.
I just remembered I did blog about the pregnancy. I was due to be there at the birth. But that’s gone out the window now too.

That is the question.

I always confuse myself when it comes to blogging. I have something I want to blog about, feel it’s not worthy of an entry of its own, so wait until I have something else to blog about. Then I find another thing I want to write about, forget about the first thing, and decide it’s not worth writing about on its own. This goes on until I have about five different topics and I think that it’s too many so don’t bother. Then I feel that so much time has passed since I last blogged I must write something then blog about everything, causing a big nonsensical mess.
Then I remember something I meant to write in that entry but think it’s not worth writing such a short entry about. So it all starts again.

I’ve just realised that my coding isn’t valid. Well, technically not my coding, but there appear to be a lot of errors in the FanUpdate coding (which weren’t there when I first installed the script), and now with the Social Vibe widget in the sidebar. ->
I can’t be arsed to do anything about it at the moment. I might have a look later, but to be honest I’m not that bothered about validation any more. I mainly did it to see if I could, and I can. And the site looks OK in most browsers, I think. Or at least it did.

I’m not quite sure what to do about a site I was going to open. I was planning a layout site, for Myspace, Bebo, Friendster etc., but also for Wordpress and general web layouts. But I don’t know if I can be bothered with another site. I have literally hundreds of backgrounds and graphics I’ve made to use but I don’t know whether I should just use them on my current Myspace/profile resource site. I could still do the layout thing, but just not on that site.
But I bought a layout and CMS for it, so I don’t really want to let all that go. I’m wondering if I should sell it or give the site to a friend to do with what they wish. *sighs*

Just a content update. I’ve added several new smilies/emoticons and reorganised the pages.

Examples:

3D smilies

Emoticon smilies

Square smilies

Word sprites

All emoticons/smilies

Yay for laptops! As the title indicates, I bought myself a new one. I ordered it on 30^th Dec and it arrived on the 5^th, I think. It’s and Acer Aspire 5920G and it has 4GB RAM and 250GB HDD, and it was only £400 ($587)—although now it has gone down to £380.
Still, it’s very pretty. The lid is kind of (very subtly) sparkly. The inside is like a grey-cream colour, which I’m not entirely sure I like but never mind. It has a webcam (I’ve always wanted a laptop with a webcam, despite actually owning cams themselves, fail), virtual surround sound, and all these handy buttons I’ll never use but look awesome.

So how was everyone’s Christmas? Mine was pretty cool. It feels like ages ago now, I can’t really remember what happened.
A few of my favourite presents:

• A hair dryer—it was the only thing I asked for, it’s one of those ones that “care” for your hair
• A ‘Tatty Teddy’ bear, key ring and cushion
• A really cute silver necklace I’ve always wanted but never got around to buying
• A gold bracelet with some charms: a handbag, a sandal, a mobile phone, and little chunk of Cadbury’s chocolate (my favourite)
• Some perfume
• A top
• Mean Girls and Clueless DVD box set
• Money
• Wii Family Trainer (joint present with my sister

I bought my mum a wine bottle holder (it’s brilliant), a Tatty Teddy bear and key ring, and a Henry the Hoover key ring; my dad a Lost series box set; my sister Friends series 1-10 box set; my brother The Inbetweeners on DVD and an electric shock game; my other brother and my other sister/brother-in-law/nephew money; and my grandparents a bottle of whisky.

We spent the morning opening presents and just talking and stuff, then my two brothers and one of their girlfriends came over for dinner. In the afternoon we all (except for the girlfriend-less brother) went to my aunt’s. In the evening my dad dropped us all (except my mum) home and my brother, his girlfriend, our sister and I played cards around my brother’s house until it got quite late and we went home.
All in all, a pretty good day.

I spent New Year’s Eve babysitting my sister while my parents went out (wow, zomg!). It was quite fun actually. She’s twelve, so old enough to be fun. We watched Night at the Museum and then played Wii Family Trainer until the new year came and she went to bed.

Last Thursday I got the flu. I never know whether to put ‘the’ in front of ‘flu’ or not, it sounds and looks weird without. Anyway, I had it, and have only just really got out of bed the past couple of days. About two days into the illness I developed six, yes six, cold sores. Four of them were absolutely massive and my lips swelled up like two sausages, seriously. Of course, I still have them, but they’re a lot smaller. But when they first came I really felt (and looked) like shit.

The first day I had the flu (Thursday), my dad had just finished redecorating my bedroom. That day he had put up my new TV. I bought it several months ago but decided not to put it up (or even open the box) until my room was finished, and I didn’t even get the chance to appreciate it because I was ill. I also had a new CD player and a new computer chair I’d bought and had saved for the same reason. I was really looking forward to using them all (yes, I’m that sad) but couldn’t. I also got a new mirror, which I love. It’s a long heart shape.
My new room is a salmony pink on two walls, and a browny-beigy-orange on the other two. The cupboard doors are white with a dark chocolate brown in the middle, and I’ve got laminated flooring. It all looks very nice. Which is a shame because I’m planning on moving out. I just want a place of my own (not actually belonging to me, of course, but living alone). I am a bit worried that my only option could be a house share, I’m a bit unsociable. What I really want is just an all-in-one bedroom and living room, with a separate bathroom/toilet area to myself. That’s it. Most places I’ve looked at are “No under 25s” though, which I think is bullshit. I would keep a flat/room as clean as someone double my age (maybe not as tidy, but as clean) and would make no noise. Still, I’ll find somewhere, I’m sure of it.

I’ve reopened my glitter generator site. I closed it temporarily because the script stopped working. I have no idea how or what happened, and Surpass didn’t have a clue, but I reinstalled and re-uploaded everything and it’s working now. Yay!

I completed NaNoWriMo, yay! I reached 50,159 words at 11:43 PM on the 30^th, so close to not completing it. The main problem was my ‘novel’ was worse this year. Not so much the storyline, but the writing itself. It was kind of all over the place and I kept wanting to edit it. But I completed it, so I’m happy enough with that.

I went to my sister’s ‘target setting’, as mentioned in the last entry. Her teacher thought I was her (my sister’s) mum. I even remember her from when I was there, she was a teaching assistant (or something like that) then.

I’ve joined Review Me, even though a) I haven’t had time to do a review yet, and b) I have my own review website in the pipeline. But I’ll still do it because the site is a long way off yet.
I really want to join the Quilting Bee, but I don’t know whether to join with this site or wait until I open my pixel site, like I’d planned. But looking around, it seems more like a bloggers’ community than a pixel one? So I don’t know…

I had some more things to write about but i’ve completely forgotten them now, as usual.

I seriously need to come up with better blog titles. This one suggests (to me) I’m going to blog about bad parents. I’m not. I’d love to, but I’d work myself up and it would be looooong.
But no, I am playing the parenting game. My parents are away and I’m looking after my sister (twelve, mental age of seven ). I’ve done it before but tomorrow I have to go to her school for ‘target setting’ with her teacher. ‘Target setting’ is, for those who may not know, is just where the child’s tutor meets the child’s parent(s) and they talk about what the child needs to aim for. When I was there it was just the pupil and tutor.
Anyway, this is annoying for me for two reasons:
a. It’s a half an hour walk there (and half an hour back) for a five-ten minute appointment.
b. Me + talking to people = blathering idiot.

My birthday was fun. I got: a necklace and ring from my parents (and they paid for my birthday parties); a Wii game, a SpongeBob phone sock and a Dumbo stuffed toy holding a ‘21′ from my brother; money from my other siblings; a necklace, a teddy and a ‘21′ key from my grandparents; money and an Eeyore ‘21′ photo frame from one uncle and aunt; a pair of ear rings from another aunt; and money from a few other people.
I got my hair cut on the same day as my main birthday meal. I wanted it layered with a side fringe, with nothing off the length. She cut long layers, not much of a fringe and several inches of the length. Hairdressers, eh? They never seem to get it right. Still, I cut my fringe a bit more and now it looks OK. Ish.

Good news, my sister is pregnant again! Not the twelve year old. She wants me to be at the birth. I think it’d be great but I’m kind of worried it will put me off having kids myself. I have six months to decide though, I suppose.

So NaNoWriMo has started and excitement is among us. I am currently (at the time of writing this blog) on 3,287 words. I want to pass 5,000 tonight. I have added the little widget to the sidebar with my word count, in case anyone’s interested. God knows if it will show up though, the worst thing about NaNoWriMo is its slow-loading site. And by ’slow-loading’, I mean ‘you’re-lucky-if-it-actually-does-load’.
I had wanted to start at midnight Friday/Saturday. Maybe not actually write write, but just to get a few words in and join in the merriment. But on Friday I was chucking my guts up all day. I was in bed all day, only getting up to rush to the bathroom and throw up in the sink. Although it wasn’t vomit I was throwing up, it was bile, right from the beginning. Ah well, it makes a change from spewing all my bile online (ba-dum-tish!).
Anyway, so gone was my plan to get started at midnight, and gone was my mum’s plan for me to answer the door to the trick-or-treaters all night (er, yeah right mum). Though looking back, perhaps I should have. That would have been a Halloween they’d remember.

My birthday partay (lulz) was originally scheduled to be the 1^st of this month but the restaurant was fully-booked when we tried to book it. I am so, so glad they were because although what I had was only a 24 hour bug, I’m still getting over it today, three days later (possibly because I lost 6 1/2 lbs? Or maybe I’m just weak), and I was feeling really rough all through Saturday.
We then tried to book it for Friday, yes Halloween Friday, that would have been a laugh. But no, it’s on the 8^th now. We’re going to a place called Frankie and Benny’s. I’ve never actually been there myself, but it was the only place I could find that was reasonably priced but not cheap. I don’t mind cheap food usually, and by ‘cheap’ I don’t mean ‘crap’, just inexpensive—the type of meal you get in a family pub. In fact, we’re going to one tomorrow—my actual birthday, all gifts welcome —with my grandparents.
My sister and brother-in-law, and my nephew, are coming down especially for the shindig on Saturday (I think they’re arriving Friday), which will be cool. My main soiree will be mainly a family thing because, clearly, I have no friends.

I finally got my new site open, yay! It’s another Myspace site (yawn, hiss, I know), but I combined my two existing ones. Anyway, it is here, if you’d like to take a gander. I did try to make it different to other sites but I don’t know… I also started to code it with valid XHTML Transitional but the widget I used only works with textareas so that really screwed that idea up. Anyway, if anyone has some c/c I’d be grateful.

I have some content I’m going to add on here at some point. I’m just too lazy I don’t have the time right now.

P.S. Did anyone like the different words I used for ‘party’? No? Just me then…

I know, zOMG.
OK, so nothing really exciting has happened since my last blog (August, whoa).
So, first of all, two resource updates, some diamond brushes and a font.
Previews:

Ooh, I got a new PC, yay! My old one, since I had the power supply was replaced, was slow beyond belief. I deleted all my files and uninstalled most of my programs but it made no difference. But now I have a shiny new one! ^_^ It has a 3GB memory and 1000GB hard drive, and it’s just lovely. Although, as usual with me, I had some problems with it at first. It turned out to be the free trial of the anti-virus software that was already installed on it. It caused the comp to crash after doing stupidly small tasks (such as opening a folder and even just right-clicking on my desktop). So I uninstalled it and all is fine now.
I also bought a mini laptop. I actually pre-ordered it in February (I may have already blogged about this) and finally got it in September. It hasn’t got great specs but it was only £140 ($250) in total. It’s quite loud when you left click, and it’s fairly slow, but I love it anyway. I still want an EeePC though.

I completely revamped my doll/graphic site, Iridescence. I completely recoded everything, and it’s now XHTML strict. ^_^

I’m participating in NaNoWriMo again this year, so I’ll be blogging even less often. I really enjoyed it last year, I hope I can complete it again.

I have actually been back from this holiday for almost a month, I just couldn’t be bothered to finish writing. Anyway, after getting a prompt, and wanting to write a couple of decent(ish) entries, I decided to pull my finger out and finish it. It’s quite long (and probably boring, sorry).

Monday

I had to get up at 4:45 AM Monday morning (as opposed to my usual time of 10-ish). We left our house at 6 AM an boarded our ferry at 7 AM.
I had a terrible stomach ache all morning and felt sick at first. But after we had breakfast in some café I felt OK, nausea-wise. My stomach was worse after eating though. Some guy in the cafe was crying, which was a bit weird.
After breakfast we went into the town centre (I’ve forgotten what the town was actually called). I almost bought a new mobile phone, but didn’t. I bought a CD though.

We arrived at our holiday park between 10:30 and 11 AM. We didn’t do much, just looked around at all the amenities and the views. In the arcade, there was a little machine dispensing bouncy balls (!), which my sister really wanted one of. As my dad twisted the little knob thing the fire alarm went off and we all had to vacate the buildings. We originally thought we’d set off some sort of shoplifting alarm (in an arcade!?).
We decided to go swimming a couple of hours later, and about a minute after we actually got in the pool we had to get out again because there was a bat flying about. Seriously, the longest any of us could have been in there was two minutes—my aunt hadn’t even gone in. After we’d got dressed the lifeguards were still flapping about trying to catch it with a net, and it had crapped in the pool!
We finally got into our caravan a while later. It was smaller than I thought it would be—although it was still a big one.

Tuesday

We went to a place called Blackgang Chine, which is almost like a theme park but it’s not really. You just kind of look at the things there, but there are a few activities thrown in such as a rollercoaster, a water slide and a maze. It’s quite a nice place to go to even if it’s not overly-exciting.
While we were there I broke my glasses. >_< I was in the toilets cleaning them (the glasses, not the toilets :p) when they broke clean in half. I couldn’t go around without them and we were too far from the holiday park to get my other pair (luckily I took both pairs on holiday) so my mum went into a shop and got tape to tape them back together. Everyone (my family) said they looked OK and that the tape ‘looked like a silver pattern’, which I didn’t really believe but it was better than nothing. I later saw in the toilets in a pub that you could definitely see that it was tape.
On the way back we went to the ‘Isle of Wight Pearl’, which is where you pick an oyster from this little pool and they open it up and you have the pearl that’s inside. They measure and value it, and give you a certificate of authentication. My mum, aunt and I all got one; my aunt’s was cream, 5.5mm and worth £17 ($34)—which is hilarious as the thing itself cost £16 =)), my mum’s was also cream, 7mm and worth &pound23, and mine was blue, 6.5mm and worth £48 ($96). Result! We all bought jewellery for them to go in. My mum and aunt bought a gold necklace clasp for theirs, and I bought a silver one for several reasons: a) I prefer silver to gold, b) it was cheaper—I’m not made of money dontcha know , and c) it was the prettiest thing there, and d) they only sold silver neck chains. Plus the darkness of the pearl looked nice in the silver clasp.
When we got back to the caravan I found I was sunburnt on my arms and half my forehead (one half was covered with my fringe).

Wednesday

Wednesday we went to Alum Bay. It’s a beach, which has The Needles on it (in it?). There are two ways of getting down to the actual beach: a chair lift or stairs. The last few times we went there (when I was 11 and younger), I went the stair way. This time my mum and I were going to go the stair way again, but my dad told both of us that the other wanted to go on the chair lift (the bastard). So we did, and we both shat ourselves. It was really high and they wobbled. Despite the fact my dad bought return tickets for us all, we (my mum and I) decided we’d go up the stairs to get back up. On the beach itself there was not much to do but sit or go on a boat out to the Needles. We did both. The boat ride was OK until we stopped to view the Needles and it really rocked which made me feel sick.
Then we went back up, my mum and I on the stairs, and everyone else on the ski lifts. We tried walking up them quickly to beat them up there but there’s so bloody many of them. We were so out of breath when we got to the top. Up there we ate then did what most people go to Alum Bay to do—fill a glass/plastic bottle with coloured sand. The sand at Alum Bay is several different colours, and in one shop you buy a container to fill with the sand in stripes or any other pattern you’re artistic enough to make. My mum did a plastic cat, my aunt did a potion-bottle shaped thing and I did a light bulb shaped bottle.

We got back in time to go swimming, but when my dad and sister went down to see if the pool was open yet, it was closed again because there was another bat in there. The lifeguards said we would have to wait at least 45 minutes, then they said even longer, because they were waiting for the bat nurse. (!) Eventually we got told that it was going to be open for 45 minutes. The pool wasn’t great, though we knew that. It’s quite small, but it has a slide.
A while after we finished swimming, we had a barbecue. Now, when I say barbecue, I mean we used a tiny, throwaway one, which we had on the grass outside our van while we sat inside eating. Our van was the first one into the main part of the camp (there was a big area where there were privately owned caravans and fields for tents) so every time a car went past people stared.

Thursday

On Thursday we went to Robin Hill. I remembered Robin Hill from over ten years ago and remembered it as boring. It wasn’t though. It was mainly walking and looking at the scenery but there was also a couple of theme park rides. There was one of those pirate ship things that swing that my dad and uncle went on, which was funny as they were the only adults on there without a child. We watched a falconry display which was pretty good, but the birds swooped low over the audience and we had to duck so they didn’t fly into our heads.
The best part was a ride-type thing which is called ‘Toboggan Run’. You sit on this dish thing with a brake sticking out, to go around a giant silver slide. You have to hold on to the brake or you will fall off. I went on with my sister—you can go on with another person if one is a child (although she’s almost the same height as me and doesn’t really look like a child). She sat in front and controlled the brake. At the beginning you’re pulled up a hill. It’s quite high and I’m shit-scared of heights. To top it off, my sister was sat between my legs and I had to really clench my muscles to keep on the dish, and use all the strength in my back to stop myself from falling backwards off the bloody thing. It went up slowly too which a) prolonged the pain in my legs and back, and b) made the ‘OMG this goes really high’ feeling intensify. I had to hold on to the brake to prevent myself falling (in addition to holding myself up with my legs and back) which, when you pull on it, slows you down, and when you push it, makes you go faster. So my holding onto it was slowing us down even more. We reached the top and finally: WHOOSH! We went down/around much more quickly. There were signs everywhere to tell you to slow down, and at every bend (there were a lot) we had to lean to that side so we didn’t hurt ourselves. It was fun though, despite the fear of flying off into a surounding woodland area. I screamed a lot, which was mainly to make my sister laugh, which it did.

Friday

We came home on the Friday. Our ferry didn’t leave until 3 PM so we had time to kill. We went to a ‘proper’ beach first, for my uncle’s sake. It wasn’t that exciting but there were a few cute shops along the coast. Then we went ice skating. Well, when I say ‘we’, my dad, aunt and uncle didn’t go because of injuries and just not wanting to. The problem was though, I could not get my skates on properly. No matter how I tied them up either my feet or my ankles/calves hurt, a lot. I went ice skating a few times with friends a few years ago and never had any problem, but this time I did. I must have managed to get around the rink about three times before eventually giving up. I was really pissed off because I really like ice skating.
Finally we had to get on our ferry to come home. It was a good holiday (so hot :o) but it was nice to get back to our pets. Aw.

Phoebe’s (my cat—in the header ) daughter Pandora gave birth to her kittens last week. She had two: one black and one black and white. They’re both girls, I think. I really want one but a) my dad said no, and b) they’re both spoken for.

It was Phoebe’s birthday on Monday, she was two. I can’t believe it’s been almost a whole two years since we got her.

Talking of birthdays, it’s my dad’s tomorrow. I didn’t know what to get him for a present so I’m taking him out for a meal (and my mum and sister).
My sister is currently in Paris on a school trip, she gets back tomorrow morning and my parents have to pick her up at 4am.
Next week my other sister (and my nephew and brother-in-law) is coming to stay with us from Tuesday until Sunday, then n Sunday my aunt and uncle are coming down to stay with us overnight because we’re going on holiday together the next day.