Castle Campbell

After Granny rejected us this weekend we had to find some other way to amuse ourselves. Saturday was a wee trip to see Gran and Grandad (they love us). Auntie Vikki and me wee cousins were there. Dylan and I had great fun playing together and Mummy had great fun playing with Ethan! We stayed for a lovely dinner before coming home so that Mummy could see Strictly.

Today we headed for Castle Campbell. It's a while since we've been there but it's a very nice castle with a lovely walk up through Dollar Glen. When we got to the castle Dad realised that we'd left the swords in the car; he suggested Mum go back for them but she wasn't keen so we had to buy new ones!

The castle is very cool. It has probably the best latrine closet of any we've seen with both a urinal and a sit down toilet with room for your toilet roll! Dad particularly liked walking up the original stairs in the tower which are over 400 years old! I particularly enjoyed fighting on the roof and on the different floors of the castle!

It was a great way to spend a short and chilly winter's day!

Chris Hoy's Postboxes

Today we went into Edinburgh to meet one of Mum's friends for lunch. Lunch is only a couple of hours so that left us plenty of time to do other things!

As usual, it was get the train in. We only just made it to the station in time which meant we had to buy tickets from the conductor. The conductor was very amused when we were in the middle of a very odd but funny one-word story at the time he arrived at our seats! Mum, Dad and me were taking it in turns to say only one word at a time to make up a story. This story involved aliens and car parks and purple and weather!

From the station we headed straight to Chris Hoy's first postbox on Hunter's Square where a kind tourist took this lovely picture of us all!

From there it was off to the museum for a bit. We spent a while in the animal section learning about Giant Land Sloths (they're taller than giraffes when they stand on the their hind legs!) and blue whales (their tongue weighs as much as an African Elephant!) and many other animals. Can you spot the t-rex skeleton in this picture?

And then we got to do a wee bit of excavation!

When we left the museum we headed for The Mound and the Paralympic Agitos were being erected.

We stopped very briefly to see the tail end of a street performance where I managed to get this picture while sitting on Dad's shoulders of a very impressive lady juggling fire while balanced on a ladder!

And then it was Chris Hoy's other postbox on Hannover Street!

Before finally making it to lunch at Guilliano's.

After an excellent lunch, Mum made us go back for a look around John Lewis before it was back on the train home. A great day!

Hadrian's Wall

The summer holidays are nearly over. It seems like such a long time ago that we had that amazing holiday in Findhorn - at least it does to me. Mum and Dad can't believe I'll be going back to school so soon.

I've had a busy holiday. It's not all on this blog but there've been things to do for me most days. The first week after Findhorn was swimming where I improved all of my swimming strokes and Mummy also had a swimming class and learned how to do front crawl properly. There's also been freestyle gymnastics, badminton, tennis and a selection of activities at the local high school. It's supposed to be a time for me to rest and I'm worn out!

Mum was getting really concerned about how tired I was and decided quite late to get us away for another wee holiday so that I could relax. Since we've been reading a lot about the Romans and I did the Romans at school this last year she found us a nice place very near to Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland for my last week of the holidays.

I wouldn't exactly describe it as relaxing though! We're home now and Dad says he'll be glad to get back to work for a rest! But it does appear to have done the trick for me. We spent most of the days outside in the fresh air getting lots of exercise and learning lots of things and had relaxing evenings in the cottage and then a good sleep overnight. Bring on primary four!

Here's a selection of memories from this holiday...

This is the garden of the cottage we stayed in. The photo is taken from the upstairs balcony and doesn't show much of it to be honest! The garden was huge and had loads of trails to follow. The owners lived in a large summer house in this garden and had a dog that I could play with in the evening. It was great fun!

The first day was spent at Vindolanda and then in the evening we headed out to the nearest bit of Wall to explore and, of course, have a fight! Dad was the Celt!

It was a beautiful evening up there.

The next day we went to the Roman Army museum and then Housesteads Fort. At Housesteads we followed the Wall for a while and collected a couple of Geocaches. And had a fight or two!

Hypocausts, you're allowed to play on them, right?

I'm the Celt this time!

All three of us in one photo!

Pretty amazing view...

Those Romans could build really straight roads. It's a real shame not all roads in the area were like this, some of them couldn't be more anti-Roman if they tried. I honestly wonder if that's what the road builders were going for - bung in as many corners as possible, and then add some more for good measure...

This isn't Roman but was the highlight of Dad's holiday and one of my 50 things to do before I'm 11 and three quarters. This is one that had worried Dad as he didn't know where we'd be able to do it... Walking BEHIND a waterfall!!!

And there was even a cave to walk through near the waterfall.

We then headed off to a lead mining museum where we got to go down the mine! It was a beautiful sunny day and very warm but it was freezing down the mine, especially standing in several inches of water the whole time. Great fun though!

Next day, it was back on the Wall. More fighting and a visit to Robin Hood's tree.

Then it was Belsay castle which had an amazing garden and I got to be a Knight!

And after this we went to see Brave at the cinema and had a go on the Dodgems!

Next day we went to Chesters where I dressed as a Roman soldier. And had a fight!

And then it was off to Corbridge, a Roman town to find all the Roman soldiers. By finding all the soldiers, I got a certificate. Luckily I found them all *just* before the heavy rain started...

Last day and we had some unfinished business to attend to on the way home. A nearby Earthcache we hadn't made it to yet and then back to Birdoswald where we'd been earlier in the week. We'd been a bit late to take part in the fun activities for the kids that day so wanted to get there to participate this time. We were cutting it a bit fine so Dad dropped Mum and me off at the door and then went to park - his turning up late didn't stop him from being enlisted though!