Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour

After being at home for a couple of hours to recharge the batteries and top-up the cat feeder, we left for the Red Lion Pub / Hotel in Radlett. We arrived at about 6:30 and checked into two very nice rooms. Cam and Clara were worried about staying in a pub but were impressed when they saw it. Cam and Clara had a very warm twin and Mum and Dad had a cooler double.

One GORGEOUS meal later - spicy parsnip soup was a revelation - we headed to bed for an early night so that we could enjoy the Harry Potter studio tour the next day.

Tuesday morning: up for 8:00, breakfasted and left the hotel by 9:15 heading to Warner Bros Studios for a 9:30 tour of the Harry Potter memorabilia.

 We had Butter Beer too

Such interesting information about the films and how they were made, such interesting information about the 10,000s of props, sets, visual and special effects.

The animatronics are A-MA-ZING.

London with the Martins

We left home at 10:00 and followed Andy to the Marriott Hotel in Cromwell Street in Knightsbridge. After some confusion about the rooms (can 4 people sleep in a room with 2 single beds??) we got into our rooms.



We walked to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park and had chips, pulled pork rolls and hot dogs for lunch - Clara had a sore throat and couldn't swallow the scratchy chips so she had candy floss instead!

We then had a wander and looked at some stall selling all sorts of interesting things - wooden tie! - and Cam, Clara and Dan had a ride on a very short roller coaster. Dan and Cam also had a go on a spinning barrel ride and Clara and Luke went on the dodgems.


Nicole at Winter Wonderland
 

We then had an hours ice skating at the Winter Wonderland Ice Rink. Also skating while we were there - Nicole Scherzinger with her friend and 2 small girls.

 

After that we had dinner at TGI Fridays before walking back to the hotel for a night cap and bed. We walked a total of 14.5 km today!

 

The next morning we had a HUGE breakfast before walking to Harrods for some browsing.

 

We left London at around 2:30 and we home for about 3:30 on Monday: However, the adventure is not over...



Merry Christmas Sprees.

Lovely Christmas Day, lots of great gifts - Clara's camera, Cam's GTA next gen, mum's scarf n top, Dad's self stirring mug and DVDs. Lots of food, especially as Graham was poorly and couldn't help us eat it :-(.  Hope you're feeling better bro.

Nice late afternoon walk, Doctor  Who and Eastenders. Altogether restful, relaxing and joyful.

Merry Chrstmas and God bless us one and all.

Yule Log

Done !

Clara's new football kit

Cupcakes - how apt!

Happy 80th birthday Grandpa John

We went to Grandpa John's 80th birthday party with some trepidation, knowing that Gramdma and Grandpa have so many friends and that they would want to invite them all so expecting it to be very busy.

It turned out to be a lovely evening, Cameron was the official photographer and both he and Clara managed to be their usual brilliant selves. Talking to everyone maturely and interestingly. So much so that Rhonda told us that our children were amazing and Guy told Grandma that they were both 'charming'.  What lovely comments - what lovely young people. We had nice conversations with lots of interesting people. We met Sophie's boyfriend Will for the first time and were duly impressed and saw Jospeh and Lucy for the first time as an official couple.

The cosmos also put on a Geminid meteor shower for the occasion.

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree....

Put the tree up today.  How festive do we feel.

Pianoforte level 3

Cameron undertook his level 3 piano exam on 6th December. Francesca took him over to Tunbridge Wells. Cameron didn't feel he had done as well as with his mock with Francesca. However, the results came through and he had achieved a merit, with 75%.

Cam's best song was Clocks, he got 22 marks out of 25 for this. Well done.

Cam's Level 3 certificate.

Happy birthday Clara

Clara's 12th birthday. She got an iPad mini for blogging, vlogging and watching Zoella videos on Youtube and Eastenders on catchup.

She went swimming with Sophie, Maddison, Courtney, Grace and Kiera then they all came back for a birthday meal, videos and chatting.

VERY late night - exhausting but nice.

Jon Spree, CFR

Dad passed his CFR assessments today. Very nerve wracking and stressful but he was up to the job.

Mum and Clara went to see England ladies lose in a friendly to Germany, they were outclassed unfortunately and lost 3-0.  It was cold but fun - Clara's first ever professional football match at Wembley no less!

England ladies at Wembley

Mum and Clara went with Larkfield Ladies to Wembley to watch England ladies play their first ever game at Wembley. We were part of a record 55,000 strong crowd watching them play Germany.

 

Nice day out - shame about the score - 3 - 0 to Germany.

Cameron has been voted as the Student Voice Representative or his year and house. He applied 'to help make the school better' ... Oh and 'because they have doughnuts at the meetings.'

Happy birthday Cameron.

Happy birthday Cam - 15 today.

Lovely day, pressies after school, visit from Grandma and Grandpa John, Grandad, Lol and Emma.

Sleepover next weekend.

Halloween

Nick and Lisa's Halloween party 2014 has a Zombie theme.

CFR training

1st day of CFR training - salbutemol training complete, assessment passed by lunch. Well done!

Good Ship Lollipop Dance Show

Clara performed in her 4th dance show with Duets at Central Theatre Chatham.  She danced really well and looked beautiful.  Lots of cheers for Clara, Megan and Abby from Cam, Nick, Dan and Jack!  Well done girls.

All age groups danced and 2 little girls stole the show by spending their entire first dance looking for their mums in the audience.

Heart of Kent Hospice Rainbow Run.

We arrived at Mote Park at 9.30ish and met Megan and her friend Beth who were also running. We also saw Caroline and Katie Ireland and many people from Parkrun - Donna and Tim, Brian (who gave Cam and Clara their entries), Tracey.

We registered and had a warm up. Then at 10.00 we were set off in groups of 50, we were in the 3rd group to set off. Cam quickly got bored with our slow pace and went off by himself. We got through the Green Zone pretty clear. At the red zone Clara got a face full. We went through blue zone ok and finally purple zone.

Cam finished 9th overall. The rest of us finished in about 35 mins.

 

 

Larkfield Ladies under 13s

First match of the season. They girls did reall well and improved so much in the second half. They didn't win but Clara played really well and shows great promise.

Open London

We spent the day in London with Grandad, Auntie Pat, Lol and Emma. We wanted to visit some London buildings. We arrived and joined the queue for Lloyd's of London. It was an amazing building, a real mixture of old and new.   Time for lunch - Bodeans by Tower Hill. After eating copious amounts of food we walked back to The Bank of England but it was a 2 hour queue so we left Grandad and the others to get a train home via the Tower of London to see the poppies planted to commemorate the 888,246 british soldiers that died in WW1. Incredible.

Cam's first tournament with Bearsted

Bearsted entered the Aylesford tournament and won! Well played Cam.

After the tournament we all went to Sara and James' for a sports afternoon.

Clara started at Invicta

Clara's first day at Invicta Grammar School. She was up super early and looked soooo smart in her new uniform. She had packed her bag the night before and ran off up the road to meet Sophie, Ceri and Maddison to catch the bus to school. It went well and she called in at her old primary school on the way home to tell Mrs Bone about her day. She had lots of new lessons, some homework and met some really nice new friends.

Brighton

Bank holiday Monday and Clara's been longing to visit Brighton; Dad suggested an overnight stay.

We went down Sunday, had a walk along the pier and dinner in Buddies café - the biggest portions of food you have ever seen.

Monday was really wet, it rained ALL day. We had a wander round the lanes and visited Choccywoccydoodah.  Some pretty amazing cakes there.

Boxley Church Fete

Boxley church fete was held at Parsonage Farm. There were various stalls, tea and cakes for sale, and games to play - splat the rat; so addictive, so difficult.

Some country dancers gave a demonstration and then asked for volunteers to learn some dances. Nice moves from Dad and Grandma.

Mallorca 2014

Holiday with the Martins, Goldings and the Smiths.  All met at Gatwick and flew Norwegian airlines to arrive in Mallorca at 9ish. Nice coach journey to the resort Cales de Mallorca.

Cam dancing with a stranger!

Cool kids

He's going down

Beautiful girls

Ready to go home :-(

How much food?

Waxing the cat!

Clara was waxing Dad's back in preparation for tomorrow's holiday to Majorca. Mum was holding a waxing strip and Amber walked past - oops, her tail brushed the wax strip and it got stuck.  Much coaxing of Amber from under a tree and much cutting off of the strip from her tail and she is now quiet a bit less hairy than she was before.

Commonwealth Games 2014

Left home at 8:30 for the 8:40 train to Strood, then St Pancras. Walked to Euston for the 10:30 to Glasgow, arrived at Glasgow Central at 3:00. We took another train to Balloch to find our B & B. comfortable room, dodgy decor! We had dinner at the Cantonese next door which was lovely.

Tuesday morning we had an early breakfast and left for Glasgow and Hampden Park for the athletics. We saw heat of women's 400m, men's decathlon discus, pole vault (down to last 3 - an Englishman, Welshman and an Aussie). The session was due to finish at 1:30 but we didn't leave until nearly 4:00 due to the pole vault overrunning.

Back to the B & B and Stables Steak House for dinner - no steaks available though.

Wednesday we took (another) train to Edinburgh and visited the castle - GREAT views.

Thursday we were going to see Roslyn Chapel but had a lie in and visited the Scottish Parliament instead. Maybe next time. We want to return when the festival is on - we missed it by a day and it looked like it would be really interesting and fun.

Train back from Edinburgh at 3:30 getting home at 9:20. The train journey back didn't seems as long as we had a table and could chat, read, play cards :-)

Clara's first football match.

Sarah (manager) posted on facebook about the tournament - Brilliant effort today - bags of potential , loads of smiles and some great play - Well done girls , really proud. Runners Up in the Shield at Foots Cray tournament - future very bright  :-)

Clara enjoyed it so much she decided to sign for the season - Dad dropped the forms round that night.

What sport should you do?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28062001. Cam and mum took this test today. Question 8 focus. 


Mum " how focused are you?, the options are 1- what was the question to 10 - focus is my middle name"
Cam "what was the first option again?".......

Last day at Aylesford Primary School.

Clara's last day at primary school. Lots of tears, brilliant assembly.

 

After school Luke Martin invited some of year 6 to his house for an end of term / year / school BBQ.

 

 

Leavers' Prom.

Leavers prom today. Clara looked beautiful.

She went to Sophie's house for cocktails with Ceri before being driven to the prom by Sophie's dad.

Happy birthday

Amazing birthday! Thank you to my darling husband for a lovely morning shopping and a delicious lunch. Especially lovely to have the chance to sit and chat in the sun x

Science museum visit

An exciting day - Cam went to the science museum with school. It was ok but they weren't allowed enough time in the good areas and had too much time in the 'boring' areas.

Clara had an Invicta taster day - she found out her form, 7N, met her buddy, Eleanor and had a great day getting the bus, meeting new people and learning where her form room is.

Leavers play

Programme.

Clara's year 6 leaver's play was this week. Dad, Grandpa and Grandma saw it Tuesday, Mum, Cam, Lol and Emma saw it Wednesday.  All the cast looked like they were having a great time - Cam enjoyed it too!

BBQ at the Martin's

BBQ at the Martin's this afternoon.

Loads of food, quite a bit of wine and a good laugh with the Smiths and the Goldings.

The younger members of the families went to the park and came back when it rained ... Really wet.

Isle of Wight

Clara's off on a school holiday to the IOW today. She left in high spirits to arrive at school at normal time. The coach was due to leave at 9:30 arriving at HMS Dockyard at 12:15 for lunch and a visit to a submarine - HMS Alliance.

The ferry crossing is at 4:30 and they will then go to the hotel for a fire drill with free time on the beach.

Saturday is a trip to Alum Bay and a walk to Tennyson Down.
Sunday is Robin Hill Country Park and Dinosaur Isle followed by a Disco.

Postcard home.

Monday a visit to Amazon on the way home. To be collected at 4:30  we await more exciting information from Clara on her return.

Last Aylesford Primary School Sports day

Clara had her last sports day at primary school and the last Spree family sports day at Aylesford Primary School.  Fire House had a great reputation to uphold, they haven't lost since before Cameron's time - no pressure.

The different format (afternoon for years 3,4,5 and 6) meant mum and dad could attend.

Fire were second after the carousel events; tunnel ball, speed bounce, javelin and hockey. But there was still all to play for.

Clara was in the 100m sprint and 100m relay against her arch rival Ella Weeks... She came 2nd...again. It was a good race and Ella and Clara shook hands after.

Then the final scores were announced by Mr Geedah, in a very fetching outfit it must be said.

Fire had won AGAIN.  :-)

Dad's birthday

Happy Birthday.

Clara went to football with Dad - hmmm not likey to be repeated anytime soon. Poor Dad pulled a hamstring BUT we did get to see X-Men, days of future past - good film - on Saturday evening.

Sunday we had a BBQ with Dad, Auntie Pat, Lol and Emma (back from Thailand 2 days before the military coup) and the Martins.  Nice food, good company sitting in the sunny garden til the sun went behind the houses and it got too cold.

War horse

Clara went to see War Horse with her school. She had watched the film in class previously and this was to help them compare the two media.

Clara's appeal - update

Clara's going to Invicta. We got a letter on Thursday to say that Clara has been offered a place at Invicta :-). She went to see Warhorse with the school and didn't get back to school til 7:30. Mum took the letter to meet Clara and to gave her the letter to show Mrs Bone - everyone was soon excited, Mrs Bone gave us both a big hug, Ella punched her Dad and Clara didn't stop smiling. She went home and text everyone on her contact list.