TV fame at last!

Well, guess who 1st made an appearance on TV? Yep, none other than ...


Helena! Click here for the Calendar News report on the Hatfield Pit Cage accident

Cool Ape 2

Aidan, just hanging around again, and Helena ... taking in the sun?!

Well isn't that what holidays are about?

Messing around in boats

I'm not sure of the conversation here. Maybe Emily is wondering what the oar is for, or where it should go, or why hers is so much bigger than Aidan's. But it proves the point that "There is nothing ... absolutely nothing ... half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats". Of course it leaves the question who is rat and who is mole?

Grade 3 success

Much to her surprise Emily has passed her Grade 3 Keyboard exam which she took on Tuesday. After a last minute panic about her pieces last weekend, clearly having not put in enough time to learn them as well as she could have, the focused practice paid off. In a play-through immediately prior to the exam she did fine, but an attack of nerves clearly got the better of her in the exam itself as she claimed to have "messed them all up". Convinced she'd failed, the shock on her face when she got the news she'd passed was worth a photo - alas the camera was not ready.

Gold at Newcastle Open

Yet again gold (coloured) metalwork has arrived home with Emily from the Newcastle Open Teamgym competition today. Goole Senior mixed team got 21.something, beating their mark at the National finals which took place back in May, so confidence is building that this year could be their year to take something other than silver next May. Well, they deserve to, having been pipped to the post too often in recent years.

Acting Debut

Aidan found himself with another developing skill when he made his acting debut at school this week. In a two-night production of the moving story about Anne Frank, Aidan took the part of the older Peter van Daan (due to the number of students wanting to take part many characters where split across several actors).

The true story, based on the book "Anne Frank's Diary", is about two families in hiding from the Germans during the 2nd World war, the Franks who were German Jews that had emigrated to Holland in 1933 and the van Daans. During the time of their hiding in the top storey of a factory, Anne and Peter struck-up a friendship.

The part Aidan took was for the period prior to their discovery by the Germans, a part of which he had to re-enact at both the Art Week's finale and at the school Prize Giving afternoon in front of the whole school, guests and many parents, and he didn't forget a word or fluff a line!

O no! Not again?

I wonder how often these words have crossed our minds or issued from our lips as a consequence of something negative, bad or challenging. I've given them more than a fair share of use with regards to Emily and Aidan - and it happened again this afternoon when the post-lady arrived.
No, nothing bad though, but a letter from school saying that Aidan was to receive a prize, the Year 9 Victor Ludorum Award (basically a sports boy of his year group). This must be at least his third prize in three years from school, but it is nice to say "not again" in a positive context.
All credit to him, because clearly school see something worthy of reward, though sport in the context of football/rugby/cricket is not his thing. Clearly his first positions in school sports in high-jump and hurdles and second place in 100m counts for something - especaily since he doesn't regularly do any of these!
So, well done, Aidan.
See the school report on Prizegiving at http://www.emmanuelctc.org.uk/trinityacademy/news/article.php?id=1857
See the school report on the Doncaster Schools sports competition which Aidan took part in at http://www.emmanuelctc.org.uk/trinityacademy/sport/details.php?id=1849&category=-1&offset=0

Now she is grown-up

GCSE's finished today, Emily has now finished her compulsory education! Wow, how the year's go by.
To celebrate, she and a group of friends have taken off for the weekend on a canal boat from Goole to Castleford and return.
In a week's time she has the school prom - Emily in a posh frock - I can't wait!

Thanks for all the help

£400 sounds a huge amount - and it probably is. But thanks to the efforts and encouragement of so many kind and generous people, it is amazing how quickley it has come in to support Emily getting to the Uganda Sports Camp. Thanks to all

British Teamgym Finals

Despite reasonable expectations, Goole Senior Mixed Teamgym squad were pushed to the runners up position by a team from Bracknell in the National Finals of the British Teamgym competition. Are well, there is always another year, though two before Aidan can join Emily in the senior squad.

The road goes ever on and on ...

... and on and on and on!
For 19 and a half miles instead of 15!

After waving goodbye to Helena and Aidan, we set off from Wheeldale at 9:35am to begin our walk. Unfortunately, the first part of the walk was not very clear in where we should be going. Arthur lost the path and we ended up spending the first part of the walk stumbling (and in Emily's case) falling through heather. We eventually found the path at the Blue Man ‘i the moss 45 minutes behind schedule. It should only have taken us 45 minutes! The path was clearer (if a bit squelshy) and we quickned our pace. The silence of the moor was frequently broken by Emily’s rebukes to the grouse which would startle us as they suddenly rose into the sky from close by with an acute alarm call which she became an exert in copying. However, as we headed up towards Danbyhead and the econd road crossing we found the path disappeared across a good half-mile strech of bog. We wasted yet more time trying to find a way round it to stop our feet from getting wet! Hitting our second road, the one coming up from Rosedale, gave us our first glimpse of our main lunch stop, the Lion Inn, but also the three mile road bash to get there! The fact that we had to walk away from the Inn at one point was very frustrating! Arriving at 1:40pm with 10.5 miles done, a pint of cranberry juice and a bowl of broccoli and stiltion soup revived us.
As we set off at 2:15pm for the last stretch little did we realise just how mch the aches would increase before the end. From here we had the company of Tess, our German Shepherd/Collie cross, who has been excluded from the first part due to the path crossing “Access land.” From now on though, we were on a public right of way; an old moor railway track. After 15 miles, the beautiful scenary around us was dampened by the fact that we were feeling tired, with feet, hip and knee joints telling us they would have happily stopped at the luch-stop! Tess (being Tess) still had bag fulls of energy and all she seemed interested in was why we weren't running and chasing after smells on the moor. Going (painfully) down hill on the last mile of the walk we were met by Aidan, much to Tess's enjoyment, and a minute later she went extatic as Helena came into view (pulling Aidan almost head first down the hill!)
We finished at 5:30pm with a total of 19.5 miles.

Thank you to all those who have sponsored me!

Emily

New Year Together

Family get-together's are not that frequent so when there was a chance of Arthur's brother and family meeting up with us, how could we refuse. An early morning start for New Year's Day saw us all arrive in Bradford, at the National Museum of Film and Photography. First we saw the IMAX version of Madagasca 2 then enjoyed the displays. Alas this photo is not the best example of high quality, but what can you expect from a phone camera!