Aaron's Blog

Archive for the ‘Year 7 to 8’ Category

Aaron is now doing swimming on a Saturday morning at 9am, after Ben finishes his lesson. He (and we) aren’t really keen on his current instructor so we decided to change his lesson and managed to get him in after Ben, with Jess, who is also Ben’s instructor and used to teach Aaron in a lower stage. Aaron likes her anyway, which should help him. Monday afternoons after school were getting awkward as Aaron is always so tired after school that he doesn’t put the full amount of effort in, so hopefully he will be much better on a Saturday morning! 😉

Aaron received his Gold merit certificate a couple of weeks ago but we didn’t go as we didn’t know he was getting it! Apparently he forgot to tell us or didn’t know himself, but after the last assembly we went to when he was grumpy, we are not convinced. We were quite unhappy and upset that we had missed it as we had been waiting for a very long time for him to get his next merit award as his teacher, Mrs Wall, hardly ever gives out merits. She uses her own system called ‘DOJOs’ for some reason. Since then though, he is over half way to his next Headteachers Merit Award, but I think it will come next school year as there are only 2 1/2 weeks left now!

This year was Aaron’s last KS1 Sports Day, which is only for an afternoon but he takes part in all of the activities. There were 6 events as usual and Aaron tried his hardest in all of them, but his house (Lyhner) ended up last in the final results, which was possibly the first time since Ben and Aaron had started at the school.  This year he only had to do each event once as they had enough people in their team, whereas last year he had to do everything twice due to his team having only 3 people. He was pleased with that as it meant less effort! He did very well in the football dribbling, egg and spoon race and the relay in particular, in what was a lovely but very hot afternoon! Bumblebees also brought the children, inc Coby, over onto the field to watch a couple of events, so Coby was able to see Aaron and us, before they took them back due to the searing heat. He gave us all a hug and was very pleased to see us! 😉 As Aaron’s Sports Day was on a Monday, he had to go to swimming afterwards as well, which wasn’t great as he was too tired out from all the running he had done in the afternoon. Roll on KS2 Sports Day next year!

Aaron lost two more teeth a couple of weeks ago, in a matter of days. They were the ones at the front and at the top of his mouth. He now looks like he has been punched in the face as he has a big gap there! 😉 The tooth fairy came both times and gave him a £1 for each tooth, so he was very happy!

Over the final Bank Holiday weekend in May, we stayed at a Lodge just outside of Tiverton. It was basically Kelly’s birthday present. The lodge was on a farm and was part of 3 other buildings that were rented out but we were on the end next to a large field with sheep and a pond. The farm also had a proper tennis court and a games room, so it was very nice really. The only problem that we had was that our Lodge didn’t look to have been cleaned down on the outside as it was covered in massive spiders webs and there were quite a few cobwebs in the corners of the rooms inside. Oh and the sheep woke us up at 4am each morning by ‘baa..ing’ extremely loudly! 😉 There was free wi-fi though, even though it was quite sketchy and kept cutting in and out.  We had a good weekend there though and visited several places. 

On the Saturday, we went into Tiverton and had dinner at a Wetherspoons before having a walk alongside the neighbouring river before heading to Wimbleball Lake, which was on Exmoor. The weather wasn’t great unfortunately but was dry enough for us to have an ice cream and go for a walk along the lakeside path. Ben managed to get stung along the way though so wasn’t very happy and Coby was moaning as he didn’t want to walk. So the usual then really! On the way back to the car, we had a look at the campsite and the boys had a play in the outdoor wooden play area for a little while, before we headed home. It had come out really hot in the evening, especially as we were trying to play Tennis, and then we started to hear the rumbling of thunder in the distance (which had been forecast). Typically, the thunder and lightning started as the boys went to bed, although Ben, who was in his own room, came out to watch it with me as he was a little worried being on his own. Aaron and Coby managed to sleep through most of it though. It didn’t last too long and Ben went back to bed, although it did come back a bit again in the night.

On the Sunday, we didn’t really know what to do as the weather was quite iffy and rained each morning, but we eventually decided to go swimming in Tiverton. It was a nice pool and the boys all enjoyed it there. We then ended up at Bickleigh Mill, just outside of Tiverton and had a look in there and had an ice cream. The weather was quite hot and sunny by now, which was typical! At the same place was the Devon Railway Centre, which is where we had hoped to go before we woke up to rain that day. The boys really wanted to go in but it was way too late for that so we decided that we would go there on the Monday instead, even though we had planned to go home in the morning. After leaving here, we stopped off at the Great Western Canal (as it was on the way back to the lodge) and had a very short walk along the canal and the boys played in a brand new play area there, before driving home for tea again. We did some packing in the evening and we all went to play Tennis again and the boys in the games room before heading to bed. Luckily, there was no thunder or lightning that night!

On the Monday, we had to be out by 10am but for some annoying reason, the owner came over to us at about 930am and asked if the cleaner could go in and strip the bed as ‘they wanted to get them washed and dried in the nice weather’. We weren’t very impressed by that but couldn’t really say no. So we eventually left at 10am, after making sure we had picked everything up, and drove to the Devon Railway Centre and spent the majority of the day there. It was boiling hot with not a cloud in the sky, so the weather was too perfect really! The place was really nice and we had lots of rides on the steam and electric trains and the boys had a good play in the soft play area. They also had a model village and a nice picnic area where we had our sandwiches for dinner. They had lots of little model railways in an old train carriage, which was great, but so hot in there due to the weather! We had to make sure we put plenty of sun tan lotion on all day! Whilst we were having our picnic, Ben got bitten by a horse fly, so he was in tears again. Luckily, Kelly has some cream on her to put on it. On our way out, we stopped in the shop and the boys bought something each with their money. It took ages for Aaron to decide, but he eventually settled on something! We then got back in the car and drove home.

We all had had a nice weekend and enjoyed the quietness of the lodge (apart from the sheep and thunder) and went to some nice places. The lodge was OK, although it had lots of cobwebs outdoors and a few indoors, and the farm was nice with the tennis court and games rooms. It was a shame that the owners were a bit strange though!