Hey blog! This week I had an Easter break. As it is different from my normal weeks, in this post I am going into detail about what I have been doing.
Friday
Today I went on a walk and had a picnic with my big brother. We visited Sherwood Pines, near Sheffield. It was a place where there had been training trenches before the first World War, and replicas of the training grounds have been made, along with Frisbee golf targets. On our walk we saw several deer, most likely Roe Deer, one of only two deer native to the UK (the other being Red Deer). A few had large antlers, more than a foot long! After the walk, we sat down near the car and had lunch. Then I amused myself by throwing pine cones at the grown-ups! Afterwards at home I took some time in my shed.
Saturday
Today I was invited to a friend’s party. It was her 13th birthday, so a big one. We ran around in the field out the back of their house for the whole afternoon, and had a chocolate and marshmallow fondue: heat up some chocolate, get a few skewers, stick marshmallows on the skewers, then dip them in the chocolate. I knew all but one of the people invited, so the entire thing was great and one of the most fun days EVER! Again, afterwards I went to my shed, and did some wood carving.
Sunday
Today was Easter Sunday, so we went out across the Derwent (a river near us) for a long walk. We packed sandwiches, a bag of crisps, and some salad, and set off. We hoped to see some Little Owls, the smallest owl that lives in the UK and which we had seen the week before; also, we wanted to go to a local nature reserve with a lake that birds visit in winter. There were no little owls, but we did get to the nature reserve. In fact, we had our picnic lunch by the gate into it. It was a really nice walk, and like the two previous days, I went out into my shed after it.
Monday
Today we went to a friend’s wood to do some archaeology and metal detecting! Our friend has pigs, and they found a stone trough, with no obvious related features or artefacts. Since I am keen on archaeology (see my previous post: “A dig into the world of archaeology”) he invited me to dig the trough out. We had also bought a metal detector, a device which scans and finds metal in the ground. It runs by sending electric currents through the ground, which are received by sensors. If disturbance is registered in the signal, the machine beeps. After finding roughly where the object is located, you dig to find it. I dug the trough out, while Dad went around the wood with our metal detector. Believe it or not, practically the first thing he found was an astonishing large axe head, most likely 19th century! The metal detector was beeping like crazy over it. We also found the glass front of a silver watch, which we cleaned up and it looks like new. In the end we decided the trough had probably come from an ecclesiastical building not far away from the wood, though we can’t be sure.
Tuesday
Today I had my Covid jab. It was in Derby, so we decided to spent the day there. I had book tokens and WHSmith tokens to spend, and everyone had been saying I needed a haircut, so we decided to kill three birds with one stone and do them all in the same trip. I bought two books in Waterstones with my book token, and a set of “back to home-ed” lessons utensils. The Covid jab was fine.
P.S. No birds were harmed during our day out, though some might have got upset when I refused them any of my sub sandwich!
Wednesday
Today I went to Ashover tulips, a new branch of the family farm that grows the pumpkins in Autumn (I told you about this). It was my weekly meet-up with my friends, so we talked, laughed, ran around like lunatics, etc. Mum and I picked eight differently-coloured tulips which are now in a vase on the table; and after saying goodbye, went swimming. Here is a picture of me with my friends, and you can see my new haircut!
Thursday
Today I spent a lot of time in my shed, mostly working on a trapdoor I’ve been making in the floor. It was meant to be secret, but then everyone found out… I’ve just got to support the cut boards to make it secure, but it’s not finished yet. In the evening I went to my second cricket practice of the year. Having a very hard red ball coming flying at you is a little daunting, but give it a good whack and it should be all right.
Friday
Today Ruth from Kids Invent Stuff showed up to see me and give me a small prize for winning the challenge. My post eight weeks ago documented my design, but what I didn’t know then was that they give a prize for winners of the competition. In the end, Ruth (one of the presenters) came to see me and give it me in person. I showed her the Shed, and we talked for a while; mostly about engineering. In the evening I opened the gift – a book called “Build it, make it” and a toolbox containing hammer, two screwdrivers, set square, pliers, hacksaw, tape measure, pencil and three-way spirit level. To crown it all was a pack of KIS stickers!
In the afternoon we had Games Club. This is a home-ed group where all participating bring along their board games and share them. I brought Chess and also Pangolin Cards, a game based on Go Fish that I designed, which was inspired by the Derby Museum’s “Pangolin day” and made just before the first lockdown.
I’d better stop now because during the above paragraph I have reached my first >1000-word blog post. Yay!