You Gotta Hold on Me

Told Jof off again for not getting up when her alarm went off. So what that she'd spent half the night coughing and needed the sleep, and that it's her day off today, mere details.

The most interesting thing at school today was a kid in Year 5 who got some other kid in a chokehold and ran away when the teacher caught him. This is splendid gossip fodder for us as we all speculate how many birch twig thrashings he'll get, or whether he'll get suspended, or suspended by his trousers over the lunch break. Personally I vote for 4 hours of lines every evening after school.

And in the afternoon, I elected to go upstairs and read. While this might seem like a breakthrough, the book is a Minecraft one so no leopardy spots have really changed. It gave me a quandary at bedtime when I only had 1 Minecraft book left before being forced to go back to the Narnia series, and nobody likes a quandary just before bedtime.

The Victorious Return

We were feted today in assembly for having won the Lego League regional cup. But half of the kids thought winning a cup for Lego was silly, and they laughed. I won't be laughing on a morning in February when we have to travel to Bristol for the National Finals so will have to be in school by 0600. The teacher said we could bring a book. I wonder just how long my tablet will hold its charge.

Funnily enough, Bud started a new job today in which he had to fix tablets with an extra battery so they'd hold their charge longer, but these ones were for Bingo.

And Scouts started up again and I had to wear my giant shirt that has to last me 3 years but is still way too big. When we got there, the Cub Scouts were learning knots by tying each other up with lengths of rope, mmm.

I got my 5 years badge and we voted on new activities we wanted to be added to the Scouting calendar such as Paintball and Go-Kart badminton.

The Revenge of Hairybone

A much better start to the day with an invitation to go to the supermarket and get myself breakfast (macaroni cheese with garlic bread) while reading my latest Minecraft fan-fiction novelette, with Hero-Brian.

And we only had to wait for an hour until Jof was ready to come with us and I finished my book just as Bud finished the shopping. Then Jof did her shopping and I met my Scout Leader who had already 'liked' my photo of the beach cleaning party yesterday, and we met Mad Rosie too. And that was it for activity apart from spending hours creating Parkour challenges in Minecraft and waiting for somebody to 'like' them. Nobody did, even though I go around 'liking' all the Mine-challenges I play on. Who are all these ungrateful people? Children?

Life's a Beach and then you Dive

Part 1: Picking and Grinning

He woke me up at 9 to feed me and take us to the beach. My Scoutmaster Skip had emailed through a volunteering event that would count towards the 6 hours of service that I need to get the Community Scout Badge, which is one of the ones you need to get the Chief Scout Gold Award badge which is on my hit list.

And it's all very well agreeing to such a noble task but it's a little different at 9 on a Saturday morning when he's saying get a move on, and take your gloves. This event is a locally organized one where volunteers go on their Facebook page and sign up to do 2 hours of litter-picking on the beach, to save the wildlife and clean it up and generally be nice to the environment where we live.

They provide the binbags and the grabber rods and even some calendars and wildlife identification charts and stuff, all we have to do is show up and pick up litter for 2 hours. I have been using this beach since I was 8 months old, so I guess I owe it a bit.

And you know, it wasn't that bad at all. I became King of the Random Strips of Rubber Tyre, but I also found a glove, several shotgun shells, a lot of fireworks and tin cans.

Jof favoured long bits of hairy rope and bottletops, Bud got a sock, bits of caravan and millions of little bits of those bright green ropes that never rot. In the end our binbag was very full and we have made the world a better place. And we met Sydney's mum walking Bella the dog.

Part 2: Pushing those Personal Boundaries

I had my birthday recently and now we are possibly a bit old to have a party in Pirate Pete's or Krazy Kaverns, it has become the norm to find a new and interesting venue and have a boy's day out, perhaps with chips.

Last year we did Romsey Rapids and that was very nice with the waterslide and mill-race with bubble attack and a pub lunch afterwards. And we would probably have done it again had we not found the Guildford Spectrum Leisure Centre with its numerous waterslides of all nations, wave alert and the trio of diving boards, each higher and more terrifying than the last.

So we picked up Ben and the JBs and drove towards London with the 3 tall ones in the back jabbering on in their heathen lingo, recording it all on Ben's phone, and with the Dinosaurs of Rock CD playing at considerable volume. Johnny plays gittar and many of the tracks were just for him.

Guildford is quite far away but we still got there in the middle of a sentence, and without going wrong this time. Our pre-booked swim session started at 230 but we got in there 20 minutes early as a bonus. Straight away we did some watersliding but then the boards beckoned.

They have a 1 Metre springboard, a 3 Metre springboard, and a 5 Metre concrete one. Last time, I bounced the 1 Metre a few times and jumped off the 3, but never liked the look of the 5. This time we had 3 extra contenders with us and I don't think any of them had met boards of such threatening dimensions.

We all started with some 1s. Ben did dab-jumps and I did a couple of real dives and the JBs did big flap-doodle jumps and we all messed around a bit, for it is fun. But then we joined the big boys queue, because the 3 and the 5 come off the same ladder so you get to choose which one you're going to do while still queuing up.

Before long, we'd all done the 3. But that 5 was sitting there mocking us with its easy availability and no shortage of other kids jumping off it. I broke first, and climbed the heady heights, marvelling at its own personal cloud system and really quite large drop to the water below. I did hesitate. I've seen Bud do it many times and the trick is to go in straight, with both hands protecting the willocks. This way you can actually reach the floor, even though the water is 4 metres deep.

But I overcame considerable self-doubt and did it, because it is basically the 3 but with a bit extra, same theory, greater impact speed. And I did it again. Ben saw this as we egged each other on, a team effort to overcome our terror demons and have a shared experience of personal victory. Ben jumped the 5 after just a little bit of hesitation and we all cheered, after all, it really is quite big.

Then Johnny took the stand and he did a bomb. He bombed off a 5 Metre board, his first time off a board of that height. And everyone around pulled faces and went holy poodles are you sure you wanted to do that mate and Johnny came out and he pulled faces too and said gosh darn it, my bottom hurts quite a bit.

And we were all very sympathetic, and so will his first girlfriend have to be, for his rear end is no longer the pristine paragon of virtue and purity it was before that watery deflowering, just saying.

And having stared death in the face, we went off and played tag in the main pool and got some wave alerts and just messed around for the rest of the 1 hour 50 minutes and that is why we shall always be best buddies because what more do you need.

Eventually the tannoy called for the yellow wristbands to get out and we went to have a look at the ice rink and the ice smoother-truck came out and smoothed it and we had chips and burgers and chicken lumps and threw ketchup everywhere and Ben had 2 cokes and Johnny doesn't like ketchup and I forgot to order chips and you know, whatever.

By now there was an actual ice skating match in progress so we watched that a bit, it was pucking funny with the little guy falling over a lot, and we looked at the pools from above, even though you can't see the main waterslide pool or the diving pool because of bikini and photography issues.

The journey back was no quieter and I've learned some new words and basically we all talk rubbish for ages, but everyone has to have a hobby. Ben gave me a Minecraft Creeper and Ocelot set and a tenner and they all gave me a fun day out and we have all done new things in new places and extended our personal boundaries and hooray.

Well, Block me Sideways with a Bargepole

Up at 0720! But I meant to, because I was one of the team representing the school at Lego! This has been a running project for the ten of us and our teachers and I've been looking forward to it for ages.

I walked myself to school in some fairly nippy weather and we all sort of arrived together and we walked down to the bus stop by the bottlebank, carrying all the Lego items in our very own dedicated tray from the garage.

We got the normal public hoi polloi bus and arrived 1 1/2 hours early, doh. We were the second group to arrive, which was sensible given that we were the locals, and some teams had to come from as far away as Ringwood, Marlow, Reading and Fareham, so already we were in some fairly heady company. In addition, we were the only Junior school - everybody else was a Senior, practically an adult, in fact, and we were by far the youngest.

We took the chance to get ready, which was handy as the blind man and his dog, the flamingo, gorilla, toad and pig had all been decapitated in the jiggly bus ride. Still, we are all skilled repair merchants and in meedle of no time we were shipshape and Bristol fashion.

We were in a massive Design and Technology hall with ambitious architecture and loads of cavernous space and directly downstairs from Erinsmum's office, so she came to see us, which was nice. There were 2 identical mission tables for the playoffs, and space to relax and set up base camp.

We did our presentation first (which is why we needed our beach towel) and I play the part of 'Conscientious Lifeguard' who objects to litter being thrown on the pristine promenade and this leads us neatly into the robotic recyclable litter clean-up mission. Roving interrogators roved menacingly and asked us questions about our mission, because the teamwork aspect is an on-going test that never ends.

And did I mention, we all got official T-shirts? One of the team designed the front picture and they have our names up the back and everything, like a Heavy Metal tour shirt. We had an hour's break and then demonstrated our programming. Our Dog-Pig mission was our most successful for points, and our most difficult or risky one was the Trainer mission where you could all too easily hit a milk truck or manure spreader, where it would really hit the fan. The peripatetic invigilators and scrutinizers stalked the mission areas asking awkward questions.

As we progressed, we saw that each school had a place on the white-board and you'd get points for each mission but also extra credits for the other competencies such as Teamwork, Core Values (being helpful to others), and Programming skills. Each area had its own trophy, but the one ring to bind them was the Mission Cup.

You do the missions 3 times and score your points in the allotted 2 1/2 minutes. Then, once every team has had their 3 attempts, the scores over the rounds are averaged and compared. In Round 1 we got 88 points, due to extra manure runs we'd fitted in. Some teams had huge multi-functional robots that looked like they could go into orbit, but they risked being so big they'd knock over lamp-posts and blind dudes every time they turned the corner. But our robot was small, simple and single-minded in that it was designed only to complete the mission, not sign autographs later.

In Round 2 we got - 88! And in Round 3, you'll never guess - 88! We got extra points for consistency, because when you're talking off-world robotic engineering, reliability is the key issue. It's all very well if your robot can sing the national anthem on Mars, but if ours can analyse the soil chemistry 10 times out of 10 without falling over, we'll get the blocking contract. And poo to you, as well.

And once all the squares had been filled in on the whiteboard, it was time for the award ceremony. The lesser cups (core values, teamwork etc) were handed out first and we got nothing, then they looked at the overall mission scores. The Central Scrutinizer mentioned consistency as being of paramount importance, and we still hadn't won a cup, but after all, we were the youngest. We had an 88 point average. The next down had 82. Loads were below 50, one was 35.

The entire room fell silent as the Scrutinizer enjoyed his moment of power. Then one word escaped his lips, Meon. And we kicked off like a 15 kiloton device hidden in your earhole and it was Blocking Mental and we went Blocking Nuts and the girl that designed our shirts burst into tears and our chests nearly burst with pride. We got Medals. Heavy Metal ones. And certificates, too.

The man from the newspaper was there with his big camera so I guess we have to buy the paper again and I took lots of pictures and it was blocking epic and because we were the Blocking Winners and we're through to the next round which is against the Entire Blocking Country. The Head-Teacher said he'll buy us real proper T-shirts and maybe even hats and the Chief Scrutinizer said we should include sensors on our robot so we're going to do a rebuild but for now I feel victorious.

Walked home alone because I was the only one to have a signed thingy from Bud and when I got home there was a pile of 4 Minecraft books for deserving youngsters, including the Mojang Minecraft annual 2017. Well, block me sideways, what a blocking excellent day, we're going to go National on your butt. By the time my bedside light was turned off at knifepoint, I was on page 76 of the first Herobrine fancraft novel.

Doing the Spitfire Boogie

A pretty normal day with a maths test, spelling test, some literacy and so forth. Having finished with Goldilocks, I have now moved onto Little Red Riding Hood and have modified her into being a spiteful spoilt brat of a child, complaining and moaning, slamming doors and failing to care. Where I get the inspiration for this horrible character is anyone's guess. One skill she does possess is deadly anti-wolf knife-throwing, although the knife in question is a butter knife she usually uses to scratch graffiti into the walls.

And we did some more on the Battle of Britain. As part of this, we watched a Youtube video by the Horrible Histories people on CBBC (kids TV) which dishonours the entire war effort with a dreadful song and dance in front of a Spitfire, which would have turned in its grave if it had one.

Some of our classmates requested a re-run so they could leap about once more like mead-soaked medieval minstrels playing Perkin Warbeck's Manic Madrigals. Their cavorting was so loud, it was only when I replayed the video for this picture I found out about Douglas Bader, a man with fewer than the average number of legs.

Walked home with Okely-Dokely, something I shall do a lot more often now that Bud has a new place to work.

Digby the Dogby

Got up at a much more sensible time today and still managed to be ready with plenty of tablet-time to spare.

Today they switched around the order of our PPA session which may not sound like much to you, but it means we finish the day with an uplifting game in PE instead of drudging it to a soporific standstill in French, bleah.

And we found out that the whole Lego Robot Builders team will be going (by bus) to the regional finals so Bud brought in a black foam-lined tray-box (visible at the far end of the table) from his old work to safely carry the Lego Drone and animals by public transport to the finals venue.

In Computing, 2 members of our team spent the whole lesson giving the animals names beginning with D, such as Digby the Dog, which earned them a shouting from the teacher.

And in Literacy we decided to send the word 'said' to Coventry, or at least into the wilderness of wailing and gnashing of teeth, because it gets so boring when you get a conversation in a book with he said she said he said. Now we have to use other words like shouted, exclaimed, blarted, whispered and stuff.

Of late, I have been growing my hair. Not necessarily through choice, but I have allowed it to propagate to help protect my ears from the chills of winter. I have come to love my sideboards, and plan to grow a beard when I am older, like the owner of the bike shop down the road, and so many other hipster chapsters nowadays. But today I had my hippy tresses removed, lucky I stole Bud's hat this morning. Yes, I'm still a nutter.

Little Red Frosticles

Now, because it was the first day back to reality from a chronologically relaxed holiday, I feared the inevitable morning mess-up and reset my own alarm to 0730. For weeks and months I've been getting up at 11 or so, possibly only when my bladder threatened to rupture. And I know some people whose evil alter ego turns off the alarm in the morning, allowing them to go back to sleep. Thus I had dressed, eaten, got my lunch ready and cleaned my teeth etc with 35 minutes to spare, which did mean some time on the tablet but possibly not enough sleep. I have changed it to 0800.

There was ice in the gutters and frost on the ground as I waited for my friend but he didn't show, so I walked to school alone. The reason he didn't show was because he'd turned off his own alarm and was 1/2 an hour late. Gosh, how the teacher shouted.

Today we started our Battle of Britain topic, and in extra-literacy, discussed how we could modify the basic narrative to Little Red Riding Hood to add extra nuances. Child J has gone for 'Little Fat Riding Hood' who eats all the doughnuts destined for Grandma: I might go for a Little Red who doesn't fear the valley of the shadow of wolf because she's the meanest Feather-plucker in the valley.

Later, Jof said I couldn't possibly have pasta for lunch, snack and supper. WRONG!

School, Preparatory

Up at the crack of 11, long may this continue. Jof is not feeling well so was content to sit near me on a different sofa while I ignored the outside world, for it occupies a position on the spectrum of reality that does not conform to my cyber-ideals.

But, following the Tinsellectomy, I briefly helped transport boxes of xmas decorations back up to the loft, it's amazing just how much tinsel and twinkly stuff you can scatter around the house when you've got decent-sized rooms. We're going to need to hoover.

Following 2 festive weeks of nothingness, I have to return to school tomorrow. The panic was short-lived as it seems we'd already got my PE kit and school rucksack ready last month, and after-school club doesn't start yet and there was no homework, so I did a thank-you letter to Grandad and my work was done. Jof gave up and coughed her way back to bed and I'm going to have to set an alarm tomorrow. Hint: 'Stollen' is not so much a cake as a sugary doorstop. Just saying.

Bones of Slime

Well, it's the same day again because I was up earlier, here we are not watching the fireworks on the London Eye. At 230 this morning I said goodbye to the JBs and got to bed half an hour later. Today (part 2) I got up at 1300 and declared that my bones felt like slime, I probably shouldn't have had that seventh absinthe. Had bacon and poached eggs because Jof recommended it. Lunch was at 5pm and nothing was quick or loud, I felt no need to get dressed but did enjoy pasta. 2 of us have colds so the lounge was a cacophony of coughs, sneezes, farts and groans.