I'll get this out of the way before I have holidays things to write about =D

First and Foremost, it's now finally the October break!

The official notice in my homework diary:

Okay, so technically the circle should include next Monday. Call it artistic license.
Anyhow, though it has been but a few short days (I find this so hard to believe!) since my last post, I feel though I have been neglecting this blog *sad face*. Yes... it may only have been mere days and yet it feels as though it were a lifetime! ;)

I suppose it is in order to underline the child-friendliness and general overall benevolence of the school that for the last three years on the Friday before we spilt for 'holls sweet holls', the pupils of Knox Academy are rewarded with an entire half-day free of lessons! On paper this is known as Faculty Challenge however more commonly amongst many pupils it's known simply as "Uuuurgh!".

To realise exactly why this is, you really have to sit through one hour repeatedly rolling die (occasionally getting a three and being permitted to draw yet another antenna onto your ladybird), followed by another doing nothing but tapping 'up' 'down' 'left' right' 'SPACE-SPACE-SPACE WORK DAMN YOU!' attempting to negotiate at least one half decent game of Tetris with a computer seemingly determined to lag.

By this point I could truly begin to see why I had woken up and dragged myself out of lovely, comfy, warm bed at 7.20 that morning...

"Today the school is alive with the Faculty Inter-House Challenges. Each faculty is offering activities to challenge mixed age groups of pupils. Challenges range from quizzes to origami to fun maths to sports. Points are awarded for participation and highest scores and will contribute to the overall House winner of the session. Congratulations to all pupils for their enthusiastic participation and thank you to all staff involved and, in particular, Ms Duff for organising the morning."

I shall tackle each point in turn.

Challenge. If -and only if- this is refers to maintaining the necessary control to keep from running screaming from the school gates, do I conceed the point.
Second: Fun Maths. No. Maths can be tolerable, 'okay', even interesting (depending upon exactly how well you're keeping up with the course), but when 'fun' is used to describe maths which is age/ability-appropriate for the entire school and is forced upon one for a full sixty minutes, it becomes synonomous with 'hefty dull'.
... and finally Pupils for their Enthusiastic.... I have not met these pupils.

I think though the rest of the day did a pretty good job of making up for a wasted morning.

I haven't ever seen it here before, but there was a Craft Fair set up nearby the Corn Exchange, in the same place the Farmer's Market usually is when it comes by Haddington. We think it's come from Aubigny- at any rate it's quite something. A tad like the German Market in Edinburgh each Christmas, albeit on a smaller scale, or some sort of Russian bazaar. After we spotted it yesterday Louise suggested we go there post FC today for crepes! I wasn't entirely sure exactly who was coming along, but it ended up being Louise, Claudia, Rosie, Sam and myself.

I acquired an obese miniture (Chinese) Buddha and Louise, Claudia and I feasted on crepes and some delicious Pick 'n Mix. The plan is to go down again tomorrow after our (Louise's, Beth's and mine) traditional coffee at 'The Golden Grain' (it would appear we are intiating Claudia into the cult- she only joined Knox in August), then head down to the fair and introduce Claudia to yet another new friend; Turkish Delight.

Possibly more on how that goes tomorrow. Depending on my degree of laziness.

I can't say anything much else interesting happened when I got home; tescos for food shopping then skedaddling to the library. However I rounded off the day quite spectacularly by ceremoniously mutilating my first mango.

By the time I had finished with it, it was quite a mess.

Before I meander wholly from the subject of school (it's too late isn't it? =S ) I quite wanted to mention that wednesday, you will be jealous to know, was largely cake-based. Dodie had just made cake at home. Anya brought her mum's homemade Brownies in for double Latin. Claudia bought four (small) cakelets on the way back from school -I must have been feeling uncommonly insane as I ended up giving mine to Lyovka- and in the Home Ec. department everyone had made lovely big chocolate cakes.

These -as it tends to be with most cakes- were to eat.

Only it seems that Paul, decided instead to decorate his face with one.

Taken post-wash.

I almost forgot =S

Oh, oh, and last but not least, today was Reace's Birthday. This means:
a) Happy Birthday too you...!
b) He's finally able to move into the Beth & Co. household so everything is GOOD. =D


All that... I'm sleepy. Cheerio!

In which I visit both the Beach and the Zoo...

Suddenly everyone is here, and busy arranging stuff. The first part of the holiday passed in a bit of a stupor and I think it is now trying to make up for it. Consequently things are happening faster than I can be bothered to write about them. As for photos... those previously on my computer seem to have gone walkabout, and naturally I keep forgetting to bring my camera anywhere. Epic fail.

Katie...

...had her leaving party *sad face*. North Berwick beach (which turned out not to actually be North Berwick beach) found itself rather crowded on tuesday, when a decent-sized chunk of fourth/fifth year piled in.

We then...

 

Wave Jumped (failed to jump over any waves, but became considerably wet after going through quite a few).

Searched (unsucessfully) for William's lost wallet- now listed MIA* .

Set up barbecues (one reasonably terrible and one altogether failed).

Roasted the things we should have barbecued but were refusing to cook over the first barbecue, on the bonfire which was the result of the second.

Dried off and ATE.

All highly exciting stuff- but you had to be there.

Several people I've met since appear to have caught sunburn.

Sarah & Co. had been planning a boat trip around Bass Rock, to which I had been invited. Unfortunately, no spaces left when we rang... but half an hour and Flora comes to the rescue...

One of the things included in our summer plans had been a visit to the Zoo, and today Flo's wee sister was going with a friend, so she rang me to see if I was around to go aswell.

As it happened I was, and we set out promptly- Flo's mother Debbie being nice enough to drive us all in.

We wandered up and down (though it felt like mostly up) hill, peering into the enclosures, occasionally seeing someone we recognised... naturally, ice-cream followed. But not for long, 'cos it was hot.
I understand that of course, the Zoo doesn't not have unlimited space/funds to expand, but I was still a tad miffed at the lack of space in some of the enclosures. Those of the big cats bothered me particularly. Fair enough, some of the smaller creatures might have been quite comfortable in that sort of area, but for animals of that size they seemed horribly cramped. And whilst they extended up a bit allowing them to climb, there was certianly not enough space for them even to trot (do cats 'trot'? Well, something similar). I don't know if they ever get taken out and say 'exercised', but I'm guessing probably not. At any rate, the thought of them spending hours cooped up like that I find a tad upsetting.

Aaanyway that's not to give the impression I didn't enjoy it all (I did, Flora, I did!). Watching the penguins was certainly a high point, particularly that one which reminded me strongly of the mad scientist in 'Back To The Future' (yet again, I forgot my camera so this is not my own picture but nicked from the internet in order to illustrate my point).

I end the day by hitching a ride with Flo & Co. back to Gifford, where I meet everyone preparing to tuck in to dinner at the Goblin Ha'... mmm, Brie and Beetroot tart....

________________________________________________

* Missing In Action

Sails, Ropes and STUFF

Rightio... well despite the best intentions on this front, I haven't been able to bring myself to exercise my grey matter in writing about sailing before, having not quite recovered from it yet...

Start at the Beggining (I HATE early mornings)

In which I alternately drown, or die from dehydration.

You'll no doubt be pleased to hear I shan't be giving a blow-by-blow account of the week, just passing briefly over the highlights.

Crawling out of bed at an unGodly hour of the morning certainly wasn't one of them. However it did form an essential feature of my week (as I began to fully appreciate on Thursday, having only barely caught the bus two days running). Yuck.

Always a little apprehensive meeting the rest of a group. Having to hang around them all week has the potential to be problematic depending on how we find each other, or if -god forbid- they already all know each other.
No nightmarish situations here however. All that carefully prepared apprehension is wasted as everything is hunkey-dorey from the off.

Fellow sufferers (sorry, sailors) are; Johnny, Lauren, Michael, Robert, Wilfred and The-Guy-Who-Never-Showed-Up.
(^ In alphabetical order. Oh Yeah.)

I forget the details of the first few days; essentially, everybody could indeed sail (excepting perhaps the instructors- they kept motoring about in their RIB, very suspcious), and no-one was killed. A veritable success.


Fooood....

I can't in all honesty be expected to pass an entire week without food, and I'm happy to say I didn't have to. I shall now take a moment to mention it....

Inside 'Karinka's Kitchen', one of the Marina's two lovely cafes, and the one we took to sitting outside each lunch, having hijacked the benches (although the -first? second?- day, Wilfred, Johnny and Robert were scared off by the terrifying elderly people at the next table, so we migrated and ate elsewhere. OAPs aside, we were uncompromising).

What Else? Aaah yes...

Many thanks to Papa for sacrificing sleep (and peace) to ferry me to and from Port Edgar every morning and afternoon.
Talking of commuting;

Don't you just love those wonderful traffic jams? A hot thursday afternoon and all I wanted was to get home to food and a cool drink.

Cruelly (and following on this vein);

People handing out free, COOL Lemon Iced Tea as we're stuck at the lights. I WANT SOME!!!


I've found rather a lot to write about, so to avoid an extremely long post, I'm spreading it over a couple of days. Watch out, World.