July 2017 2/4

Bloody Hell!

Mondays start well for me because I'm not at work. We're starting to get to the last of things, the last gardening lesson will be this week, the last one of these, the last one of those, and the last school report from Medium School.

The report itself was just the SATs results (teacher input comes later) and I got 112, 113 and 114 out of 120. Brainiac Lewis got all 120s and the lowest score I know about is Child A with a 96, so perhaps ours is not an inner-city sink-hole school. But I was 'Not Bad'.

And then it was Lion King sing-along-a-Max and Lion King poster design and Lion King programme design, a theme develops, for that's all we have left, apart from the last of things. When we do the singing, the teachers keep telling everyone to sing louder because all they can hear is me, as I later proved by entertaining the entire street out of the shower room window.

Ben comes to mine on Mondays and Jof had kindly cut up a watermelon for us to take to the beach because the weatherguessers said it would be hot and sunny. We met the JBs for our usual bout of extended Fourplay. OK, it wasn't cold, but they exaggerated. We went in the sea anyway. That's when we found the Killer Jellyfish.

This was not one of those harmless colourless blobs we found in Gosport, this was a 7-foot Black-Ribbed Portuguese Man'o'War with extra pincers and stuff, so we decided to attack it with rocks, which are plentiful on our beach.

Throwing to kill, we may not have been super-accurate and Johnny got Ben in the back of the head with a wayward rock and he bled LOTS and got angry. There was quite a puddle of blood on his head and his clothes and the floor back at base camp and he had to be taken away for questioning and a blood transfusion, let's hope his blood group (Q negative) is available at the vets, poor chap. Soon enough he realized he'd get lots of attention at school and extra Instagram followers, always look on the bright side. We finished off the watermelon anyway.

In Scouts we did Yoga and had to bring in our own Yogamats. Very few of us do Yoga for a living so the rubbery sleeping bag groundsheets from camping had to do. So, just like everybody else, I rolled it up and hit him with it and he said that was attempted matricide and crap jokes like that are exactly why we have to hit these people. Also we had to sign a waiver saying that if we broke our spines and were condemned to live in an iron lung or gravitational support goo forever, we wouldn't say it was the YogaMaster's (Maharishi Mahesh Yoga) fault.

Briefs Encounter

Tuesday was a day like any other day ie full of Lion King rehearsals. This time the Trees were allocated. Every year-group play has to have its dancers, musicians, grass, angels, trees and bricks, for otherwise disgruntled Mummies could say where was my little Tarquin or Roselda, surely a part could have been found for him/her/it. I myself started as a 'Musician' in the Year Zero Nativity Play, I just had to bang a cymbal or small rock and keep out of the way.

But our trees have a very cute and funny dance so we love them, they bring us shade, apples and laughter. And during one of the songs, 3 of us have to come on and make our obeisance to the great lion-kid Simba, but we don't have the [Teddy-standing-in-for] Simba yet so we had to praise a bunch of school jumpers shoved inside one another. This is much like the Jeddah Light Opera Society's 1983 production of 'Merrie England' when a priceless 17th century royal declaration on gently haunted vellum was replaced by well-used 10-Dirham note because nobody had a parchment royal proclamation handy, even the ambassador (and no, they don't give a flying fig for Ferrero Rocker chocolates).

And it was the Year 6 School Leavers' Prom Dance Event. Jof is one of the Friends-of-the-school super-helpers and like most of them, this was the final hurrah before us important people leave and they don't have to bother any more. So they'd made extra effort for extra brownie points, knowing that they could then say stuff it, somebody else's turn.

So instead of the outside disco-a-rama as planned, it rained all day so it was back to the good old assembly hall. And we boogied a bit and stole all the props from the photo booth and paraded around wearing them, as it clearly didn't say on the big sign Jof had written. My prom date was Lucy but we made an agreement that although we actually like each other and are a real couple on a proper prom date, we'd just say hello and go off with our friends, which we did, I expect all girlfriends are like that.

Then we were called through to a Year 4 classroom where all the Meon Mummies had laid out a feast of party food with added cakes and lashings of no ginger beer whatsoever. Everyone got a pointy hat and many people nicked them and wore several.

There was a bit of a food fight but not much 'cos of the headmaster standing right there, and lots of silliness and laughing and then we left the destroyed room and went back to the dance hall and did the special dance until the Prom King and Queen were chosen. They actually kissed on stage, a first for both.

I helped Jof clear up and a boy O boy, a lot of clearing was required. Supper wasn't, because of all the party food.

Wednesday was good for me with Rounders in PE and the school choosing to use many of our pictures of the Year 6 Prom on the official website. We sold leftover Prom cakes for treat money, learnt HTML in computing, and practised the Lion King yet again. But the best bit was the totally free afternoon apart from having to cram watermelon so it doesn't all go to waste.

Dirty Victorians

Started with football because I can't get on with basketball or tennis. One kid got a boot in the face, this is why I normally restrict my sporting activities to Minecraft. Then 'Hell on 2 legs' aka Crunchy Girl picked a fight with Child A for no good reason, and even I shouted him out when he repeatedly turned off my Chromebook while I was trying to work. It is possible we're all ready for the end of term.

Rehearsed Lion King up to the Stampede Scene in which I am cruelly killed off before my time. Speaking of speaking roles, in the evening I went to the theatre where Sydney and I auditioned for the Festival of Christmas at HRH Queen Elizabeth's Historical Naval Dockyard, although by then it could be King Charlie's Yard if London Bridge falls down.

Sydney and I have done this performance twice before with much success and we get different roles each year, as our talents mature and we rise up the ranks of professional Thesps, although we're not yet old enough to play Brothel Prostitutes. This time the BossMan said that comedy was the key and as we're currently doing 'One Man, 2 Guv'nors', we agreed.

We seem to work well together like Ant'n'Dec or Hinge'n'Bracket or the 2 Ronnies or Morecombe and Wise, and were asked to poke our faces out from behind an imaginary curtain like nosy grannies and we improvised a series of commentaries on other people in the room in Pythonesque accents which made everybody laugh and we were hired on the spot.

Basically we shall dress as Victorians and randomly tour the festival site (with our curtain) insulting the passers-by in a 2-day improv-a-thon with just a few basic start-off lines and concepts to work from.

It's a licence to be rude, we'll be Rollin' and Trollin'. So here for no good reason is a yacht for sale in the harbour (dolphins not included).

Carberry the Clouter

Friday started normally with Lion King rehearsals and Lion King program design and finished with the Last Gardening. Well, it's on next week but I shall be playing Mufasa for my adoring public. Our performance area is marked out in the playground as 6 x 3 metres which is the same size as our front room: the doors to the assembly hall are the stage left/right entrances.

I also got my actual school report in which I got a 1:1 in religion even though I'm atheist, and a 2:2 in French and PE which is not a surprise. Teacher seems to like me, though.

But I got hardly any sofa-time afterwards because it was time to go out. Every year, I do some work for Charidee at a local cricket ground, this year I dug up brambles on the boundary line of Southsea Cricket Club, for which I got points towards a Scout badge, everyone's a winner. So not only did I get some sunshine and fresh air, we got free T-shirts and free tickets to the T20 Blast cricket match at the Rose Bowl (now the Ageas Bowl) to see Hampshire against Middlesex.

Leaving with only an hour and a half to spare, we got to the Hedge End motorway turn-off in only 28 minutes even though we were in Jof's rubbish car. But the queue stretched from there, across 3 roundabouts, back over the motorway bridge and into the car park (a bumpy muddy field, a snip at £10) and it took ages. Even when we'd abandoned the car it took us more ages to queue up for our free tickets, enter by the wrong gate with an increasingly angry Jof and walk all the way back to our seats in the same place we sat last time. We missed the beginning of the match.

This time there were no dancing girls, farm animals or those gas-powered fire-breathing boxes that flamed every time somebody scored a boundary, but there were odd snatches of Mexican fanfares and blarty trumpets at irregular intervals for no apparent reason. But there was a wasp on my hat that landed on Jof's head, and the 14th Itchen Scout group who brought at least 60 members and loads of uniformed adults.

And because I have matured significantly, I didn't spend the whole match wandering off and investigating, instead electing to actually watch it. I even chose to ignore the Mexican Wave after joining in vigorously only 8 times. And being part of the baying crowd was exhilarating as they got more and more drunk and the Middlesex players dropped easy catches and fumbled in the field and low-flying planes went over from the nearby airport. And I took quite a lot of the photos because I'm qualified on the Nikon Coolpix B700 camera.

Our man Carberry (we saw him last time) was on top form and got 77 or so with flashing bat and big efforts to get singles as well as sixes. He is an old-school long-term veteran with lots of experience and well worth his wage. We all gave him a big cheer when he finally went off.

At half-time we fought our way round in front of the Hilton Hotel to the Bouncy Slide (free) and the Pizza Truck (ten inch pizza for a mere £10) and the beer tent (£5 per pint, but they do come in a cardboard carrier) and missed the beginning of the second half. Meanwhile the massed ranks of the 14th Itchen Scouting Movement and associated mascots paraded around the central wicket square in full uniform, now that's a parade I could get my teeth into.

So by the time we'd found some more empty seats, we'd taken 3 of their wickets and for a while we wondered whether they'd make it to their 20 overs. We screamed when they got out and my cricketing lingo improved as I learned to say "32 for 3 off 6 overs" and "put someone out deep by the square leg umpire" etc. We won.

The match was not televised so I didn't get on TV but found £1.16 and a yellow hat thing that I may be able to modify as part of my Mufasa costume.

We got some kind of charity lottery ticket called the Golden Gamble but we didn't win. On the way out I rolled down the embankment with a lot of other drunk fat blokes and rolled right into the crowd.

The car was still there as was 256 other cars and we went nowhere for half an hour as we all tried to cram out of the 1-lane exit road in the dark. Next time we might take the train. It was a very long, very epic day and by the end of it I was fkn I was ffff I wzz wzzz snore............

Newbies, Nuts and Norberts

Slept late, for I needed it. And I needed the shower I failed to fit in yesterday. On most Saturdays I have only the one appointment, which is Acting. So having had Pambled Eggs out of our new egg poacher, and the Tuna'n'Sweetcorn/cucumber pasta and sandwich combo I love so much, I was ready to once more tread the boards in anger, last acting lesson of the term.

But Performing Partner 'Sydney' brought a friend. 'Chelsea, I'm 11' wanted to tag along, see what shenanigans we get up to in theatrical academy, and do the try-out session I once did when first considering drama school.

Sydney has a ... big personality, and we have developed as a team with a robustly loud, demonstrative, in-yer-face attitude, which was quite overwhelming for Chelsea 11, poor girl.

But we rehearsed our parts and got measured for our costumes and I showed Chelsea 11 the ropes and the press cuttings and the wardrobe and at the end we played 3 games of hide'n'seek in and around the theatre even after home-time. Apparently Chelsea 11 wants to join up, it was the stage and the wardrobe department that tipped the balance.

Incidentally, today Pompey hosted some kind of gathering for Morris Dancers. Bizarrely dressed weirdos from miles around descended on the city and then caught buses home afterwards, bells a-jingle. Some had peacock feather hats. Apparently in the USA they call them 'Walmartians'.

When you perform in the Festival of Christmas, you need a city council performer's licence which includes a passport photo. So every year, Syd and I go to Sainsburys in town to use the Photo-Me booth and collaborate on a fun picture at the end. This time we had an extra Chelsea 11 and we got our serious poses (while we tried to put each other off), our fun poses and we all bundled into the booth for picture #5, yes I look smug, but I am the filling in a girl sandwich after all.

We dropped Syd and the now terminally traumatized Chelsea 11 off at home and got back to Minecraft.

We didn't even bother with Saturday-Night-is-Film-Night even though I have about 15 films in my queue. But with the addition of my latest official school pictures (portrait and group shot) and the Lego League team and todays' passport photo, we had enough to finish off my giant photo frame which has all my official images from the age of 4. Jof says we have to make a new one for Big School, and obviously a much bigger one for when I begin my illustrious film and TV career, just saying.

The Psychology of Moving On

Normally I would consider a Sunday wasted if I didn't get at least 7 hours Minecrafting, but today I actually had tasks! I move to Big School soon and wished to tidy my room.

So obviously, Jof sent Bud into the loft to bring down lots of extra crap to store in my room, women eh. This was the cutting/sticking/artworking boxes with everything from UV paint to polystyrene eggs, and we went though it all with an older, more sensible Mungleton in mind, and everything we kept went into the giant wooden trunk. All the little things went into the display cabinet on the top shelf, which cleared my desk for all the schoolwork I'll be doing. A stick poking out of a box shredded Jof's trousers, turned out it was the fishing rod with magnetic grabber that Nanna invented for me.

I got rid of the books for younger people and the plastic plane I got free at the museum and all sorts of other stuff and got to play with things I hadn't seen in years but once it had all been done, the room looked exactly the same. But you know it was worth it.

Then I did an online Psych profile (minimum age 12, I had to lie!) at Profilingforsuccess.com which only took 10 minutes, as did the results, and I am a 'Co-ordinator'. This means I like order and logic and focus and careful planning, but I hate chaos, uncertainty and ambiguity. This is probably why I always want to know what jobs I have for the next day, and why I get angry with Okely-Dokely.