Punting

Today we went punting in the River Cam.

Punting is a sport that Cambridgians like very much. We did it all by ourselves.

First we all went on to the boat. We all got into our places. Then we set off. The river was very pretty. Dad couldn't look at most of it because he was too busy concentrating. Lydia dropped a toy penguin into the water. Soon we started having chips, but the ducks smelled the chips and soon starting crowding around us. They started to bite air, trying to catch chips. It was quite scary. Luckily none paid any attention to me. Later Jacob and I pretended that the penguin was found by a punter.

My artwork

Yesterday mum got us to do some art. We had to draw some pictures of fruit. Here is mine:

Renoir

We have been learning about art. My favourite type of artworks are usually portraits of people that look realistic. I especially loved Pierre Renoir's paintings of people. My favourite was 'Girls at the piano'. I like it because it really looks like the girls are concentrating. Here is a picture of it:

 A good painting of people will make you feel like you have known the person in the painting all your life. Here is another of Renoir's paintings I saw in Paris and really loved.

It is called 'Country Dance'. Here is it's opposite, 'City Dance':

I like his paintings of people because it really feels like I could step into the painting with them. It doesn't look so realistic but it does look 'real'. He captures the expressions on their faces and shows them doing ordinary things.

Paris

Recently we went to Paris and I did so many things I will just tell you a few of my favourites:

Mon Martre

Mon Matre is the highest point in Paris (even higher than the Eiffel Tower). Lots of artists paint there and if they ask to paint your portrait you say 'no thank you'. I had an ice cream there.

The Louvre

The Louvre is mostly known for the Mona Lisa but I liked other, less famous ones like The Study of a Chameleon or The Virgin Mary with baby Jesus and Saint Martine. I might become an artist when I grow up.

The Tuileries Gardens

I loved the Tuileries Gardens. There was a Carousel and the bounciest trampolines ever! There was a playground and a thing where we could design our own French garden. I loved it.

 Eating Escargots

We also went to a French cafe where I ate escargots (snails!). They tasted a bit like chewy chicken. There wasn't any particular flavours. Dad and Jacob also tried it, but dad didn't like them.

I really loved Paris!

Nottingham

A few weeks ago we went to Nottingham. It was a great day!!!!! First we went to Nottingham Castle. It was used for lots of different things. It was even used as a museum and it had a cave tour which was awesome. The caves are tunnels built by people in the hill under the castle. They've been there since the middle ages. The best part was seeing a tunnel where some knights dug secretly to a pub!

me and Robin Hood

the caves tour!

in front of the castle

Next we went to the Galleries of Justice museum. There was a tour there that we went on. One of the guides was a man who I think was cooler than Robin Hood! Charlie S.P. was one of the coolest criminals I know. One of the police actually asked him if had heard of himself!!

Galleries of Justice museum was also a place where my ancestor (great, great, great, great grandfather) Joseph Woodward was tried and gaoled. He was gaoled because he was in a riot where the mob burnt down Nottingham Castle! He was supposed to be hanged but they took pity on him and he got sent to Australia as a convict.

the court room where Joseph Woodward had to face the judge

in front of the gallows where Joseph Woodward was going to be hanged (but he got sent to Australia instead)

the exercise yard in the gaol

Duxford

Yesterday we went to Duxford. In Duxford we went to an air museum. 

At the air museum there were lots of famous planes including the fastest passenger plane in the world.

First we went to the playground while we waiting for nanna and grandad who were coming with us. The playground was a great playground - most of it was shaped like a plane. Inside the plane there were all sorts of activities like a climbing frame and a slide. It was very fun pretending to be pilots!

When nanna and grandad got there we started looking at the aeroplanes. They were all collected and put in there like you might collect stamps! After that we looked at another collection of planes and went back to the playground to have morning tea.

When we finished playing we went to a part that had lots and lots of games. One of them was a game where you had to press some buttons and the missiles would come shooting up. Here is a picture:

the missile (there's grandad in the background)

There was also a thing where you learned how a plane flew. Here is a picture of that:

Then we went downstairs and looked at the Concorde. It was the plane that was the fastest passenger plane in the world. Grandad was really excited. After that we looked at a really luxurious plane - the BOAC Hermes. It was from the 1950s.

Elsie and me with the Concorde

At the end I went to the gift shop and bought a real 3p WWII coin!

Bees

Today we saw lots and lots of bees. In fact, there was a swarm of bees right in our garden!

Bees are very important to farmers. They help pollinate lots of plants which helps the plants to survive.

In a hive there is one bee called the queen bee who is in charge of it all. A queen bee can't sting.  But some types of bee (the English native bee) are getting endangered and are soon to be extinct. I have signed a petition to help save bees. You can help save bees too by going to this website and learning what you can do. If the bees die out we will lose a third of our diet.

Our bee swarm was an unusual swarm because usually the bees hang on a branch or something suspended in the air. But our bees didn't have anything they held on to. Swarms are caused when a new queen has been born and the parent queen leaves the hive with her worker bees. When the queen comes out of her hive she goes away with the flying bees.

Our next door neighbours phoned a bee man who had a very good plan to get the bees. He got a box and a little brush. Then he sat down and waited. Gradually the bees swarmed to a different place and he scraped them into the box with a little brush. He scraped most of them in. He hoped that he had got the queen bee because without the queen bee the rest of the bees would think 'where's our queen?' and then they would go their separate ways looking for her.

The man said it was a small swarm and a usual swarm would usually be about 15,000 bees (about the size of a rugby ball). This one was about a thousand. I heard them in the box and it sounded more like water than the buzzing of bees.

I had great fun with the bees!

Richard Kingsnorth

Richard Kingsnorth was an ancestor of mine. He was born in the early 1600s. He became a Baptist minister after he heard some people names Francis Cornwell and Christopher Blackwood say how they had become Baptists. He set up a church in his house. But the King didn't like people being Baptists so he made a rule that only 5 guests were allowed inside the house at a time. If you did it you might go to prison for a long time! But Richard Kingsnorth kept doing it. Luckily he wasn't caught. He died in 1677.

when we visted Staplehurst, we walked up the hill to where Richard Kingsnorth's house still stands

Here it is!

This is the Anglican church where a lot of the Kingsnorths were married and buried.

Audley End House

Last Saturday we went to Audley End House, an English Heritage site with our grandparents (dad's parents). It was very nice. We first went around the beautiful gardens. There were all sorts of different flowers. Roses, tulips, you name it, they had it.

Then we went to the stables. It was a very nice place. There was something which when you press a button tells you about a person who worked there once. There were real horses too! Myfavourite horse was a brown one which I can't remember the name of. He used to be a racing horse but now he is a riding one.

After that we went to the house. We first went to the servants headquarters. My favourite room in it was the cheese room. It must have taken a long time to make the cheese!

Next we went to the fancy part of the house. It had hundreds and hundreds of paintings. My favourite room was a room full of stuffed animals. It was my favourite one because I learnt that in those days not many books had pictures. So, if you wanted to know what an animal looked like, you go to the stuffed animal room.

I had so much fun!!

we some ducklings at the pond there!

We walked up the hill and saw the house from a distance

In the gardens with the tulips

Elsie and I dressed up as servants

meeting the horse in the stables

William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce was a man who helped to abolish the slave trade.

The slave trade was an awful trade which got some African people and sent them on a long journey usually to the West Indies or America. The journey was awful and one African man was only allowed to take up the space of the length of a table! It was also very smelly because nobody ever let them go to the toilet! Most of them died in the middle of the journey. Even when they got to the West Indies it was still horrible. The sugar cane was very sharp and they were also were burnt by fire.

He wanted to change the slave trade because he had heard about how awful it was from John Newton, Thomas Clarkson, Olaudah Equiano and many others. He put the bill forward in Parliament asking to abolish the slave trade for 18 years before it was passed in 1807.

William Wilberforce married Barbara Spooner and had six children with her. He was friends with William Pitt, the Prime Minister. He studied at St John's College in Cambridge and was very popular when he was there. He had most of his Christian influence from his teacher, Isaac Milner. Later, he asked John Newton for guidance about whether he should be a politician or a minister. He decided that he could serve God as a politician.

He died in 1833 just days after the Slavery Abolition Act was passed (this Act actually set the existing slaves free). He was buried in Westminster Abbey, next to his friend William Pitt.

William Wilberforce statue in St John's College

Blakeney Point

On Saturday we went to Blakeney Point to see seals. We saw a swallows nest as well. There was a book fair with lots of good books and mum and dad got me a book called At the back of the North Wind.

Mum and dad got us tickets to go on a boat. I loved it. I love the feeling of being water. All the water was rushing past and it felt so nice when I got sprayed with water. I am going to live in a houseboat when I grow up. It will be called "The Bookworm".

On our boat we saw some seals. The baby seals were soooooooo cute. We also saw some males fighting.

Then after we got off the boat we learned what dad and Lydia had been up to. They had been having a marvellous time. They went for a walk and they saw some crabs. Lyddie even made up a song: "Daddy and Lydia went for a walk, Lydia was sitting on Daddy's back, Lyddie, Lyddie, Lyddie Lou".

Me and Elsie on the boat

me looking at the water

the seals

a curious seal comes up to us

After Blakeney Point we saw Oxburgh Hall. We got a book called "50 things to do before you're 11 3/4". Most of the things I had already done. The hall was great. We got to go inside a priest hole. A priest hole is a place where priests would hide when Queen Elizabeth's servants went looking for them. They needed to hide because they were Catholic. Nobody was allowed to be Catholic then. Some priests hid for days in there. It was very cosy.

me and Jacob in the priest hole

coming out of the priest hole (it was very hard not to bump your head)

a chimney that looks like one in Hampdon Court

Me and Elsie next to the moat