How to climb a tree

First get off the sofa. Let Dad know that you really don't want to climb a tree. Pretend

you're really annoyed that he thinks you need exercise before you work. Walk slowly

through the living room and the kitchen and step out into the garden. Then stroke the

cat and tell her that you won't be able to stroke her for long because you need to climb

the tree. Then end up stroking her for longer than you want to. Next, get up and tell her

you're really sorry that you can't stroke her any longer because you need to climb the

tree.

Then see a cat in the neighbour's garden walk and wonder who it is. Wonder why you

came into the garden. Remember it was to climb a tree.

Walk over to the tree and put your hand on one of the wooden blocks. The wooden

blocks nailed onto it by your father. Rest your foot between the two trees, and with

your free hand hold on to a higher branch. Take your other hand off the block and put

it on the same branch. Then put one foot on the wooden block you had your hand on

and your other foot on any other block you can see. One at a time put your hand onto

an even higher branch. Hold on tightly. Wish that you could have apple pie. And swing

yourself into the thicker higher branches of the tree.

Pull yourself up to a standing position and look down. Brush the aphids off your shirt

and wait for the ant to walk away before you can stretch into the next branch. Wish you

can have cream with your apple pie. Wonder why Paula doesn't put enough sugar in

her apple pies. Make sure the ant has gone. 

Stretch your arm up to hold on to the branch. Realise that it's too weak to hold your weight and hold on to a different branch around the same level. Look for another branch to put your arm on. Put your other arm on it. Swing both your feet quickly into the even higher branches of the tree. Look down to make sure your Mum can't see how high you are. Plan to ask your Mum to make apple pie (with cream). You are now high in the tree.

Camping with my class

This week I went to school every day, even on my work-at-home-days because on Thursday and Friday I had a camping trip to Debden House in Epping. From the beginning of the week, most of the girls were already deciding who they were going to share the tent with. I didn't. I knew it would just lead to arguments and it did.

Even though it's autumn, we were lucky to have amazing weather. We were told that the walk from the tube station to the forest was 20 minutes. It felt like 40 to me, because we carried heavy rucksacks in the sweltering sun. My friend A helped me carry my lunch box. My teacher B was really good at encouraging us to keep moving (he must have a lot of experience with people complaning;D


When we there I ended up sharing a tent with A, T, M and P. I did enjoy being with them but there were many small things that M did to upset me and A. We sorted one of the main things out without any grown-ups involved but M carried on not being nice in lots of little ways throughout the trip, and I would definitely not like to share a tent with her again.


People in my tent complained about the tent size and mold on the roof, but it seemed ok to me. People were not enthusiastic about the trip, like people at Scouts normally are. Maybe they were forced to come because it was a school trip, unlike at Scouts where we choose to camp so we all really want to be there.


My teacher was really cruel about not letting us go to the toilets. My friends needed it badly but he wouldn't allow it. Luckily he let them go later. Unfortunately my friends needed it again but they managed to hold it until the teachers had gone to sleep and we all did it behind the tents.


The highlight for me was the game where we had to look for little pieces of paper with numbers and symbols on them. I had camped at Epping before and it was frustrating for me that I couldn't go off for walks in the woods whenever I wanted. I understand why though. If I was in charge of 60 kids I wouldn't allow them to go into the woods.


We kept waking up and falling asleep during the night. I fell asleep on the train on the way back and a friend had to wake me up. I was exhausted and still went to Book Club, but I was pleased I went to the Book Club (and also to the camp). I think I have come down with cold and my friend A did too.

Three Weeks of Flexi-Schooling

I started flexi-schooling this week. At school we learnt how to use Photostory and when I told my new teacher that I was going to go to an exhibition with Joan Miro's art in it, he suggested that I make a Photostory about it. The point of flexi-schooling is not to get homework from your school, but I thought it would be quite fun to do, so I started doing it. I haven't finished doing it yet, but my teacher seem to have forgotten about it. Anyway I will carry on learning to use Photostory on my own.


Joan Miro was a Spanish artist. I like his work a lot, especially the really colourful ones like "The Farm". Miro uses a lot of symbols in his paintings, like a red hat to symbolise a political identity. He is a Surrealist, which I think means things that are a little unreal and dreamlike and strange. I also liked the black and white cartoonish ones called "The Barcelona Series". I really didn't like Miro's sculptures though.


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It has been over three weeks since I started flex-schooling. The way it's structured is like this: On Mondays and Tuesdays, I go to school like any normal day, and on Wednesday I go in the morning and come home just as we break for lunch.

It's been great fun, but I've been missing out on a lot things too. I was a bit ruffled that I'd missed out on Art, but when I did Art today, I changed my mind and became quite glad that I hadn't been around for art. The people there were disruptive and annoying. There was a bossy girl there who was one of the most irritating people I'd ever met. The artist who was teaching us wasn't that good at managing the kids: she did not tell them off, she laughed when she made stupid comments, and that egged them on.

On my days at home so far, I've been cooking, working (at Math especially), reading (which is something that I hadn't been able to do a lot before I started flexi-schooling), going out with my Mum (once), trying out a dance class twice (which I found too fast and difficult), and enjoying my Scouts activities.

Also, because both my sister and I have September birthdays, I've been doing lots of cake and cookie making for our parties. We had pizza parties both times, and I helped deciding what toppings to get and preparing the very long shopping list. On my sister's birthday my mum was decorating a birthday cake but she got too stressed to continue so she asked me to decorate it instead. I really enjoyed piping the icing on even though I made a lot of mistakes. In the end the cake came out really nicely and I was quite satisfied with what I'd done, especially since I rescued my mum;D

For my birthday I made "Petrified Tree" Cookies, which is what they were called. First of all I measured out all the ingredients and it was pretty tricky because I had to double everything. I then melted butter in a rectangular pan and sprinkled home-made crumbs onto it. After that I sprinkled on layers of raisins, muesli, condensed milk, chocolate and nuts that I had browned (and burnt some!). Then I baked it. When it had cooled, I put it in the fridge for an hour. It wasn't that hard cutting it up, but when I scooped the cookies out, lots of the crumbs were left at the bottom of the tray. A lot of the people at the party said that they loved it.

Anyway, coming back to flexi-schooling, there is a horrible teacher at our school called AnDeville  - twice she has asked me those annoying predictable questions about home-schooling and in fact the questions were so irritating that it felt like she was interrogating me than asking me out of interest. The second time she asked me was when I said 'hello' to her politely. She stopped me and said, very rudely, "Are you the new girl who comes to school part time?" or something like that.

All in all, I think flexi-schooling is working out better than going to school all the time.