Joshua's College Application Updates

Joshua's college applications are now progressing nicely. He has now been offered both Brick Laying and a place for Level 2 Diploma in Electrical Installation at Chelmsford College. We are still to hear back from Southen/Basildon college as to whether they will also offer him a potential place. As it stands I think he plans to accept the Chelmsford Electrical course as this was his preferred option and preferred college. So now the pressure is all on him to get a minimum of 4x GCSE's as part of the entry requirements!

 

Holly Races in the Wickford School Cross Country

Since Xmas Holly has been going in to school early on a Tuesday for cross country training ahead of the Wickford Cross Country Comp we took place yesterday. It sounds like her tactics went a little off as her teacher told her not to go too fast on lap 1 but seemed to not tell them it was only 1.5 laps!!!! So Holly left herself too much to do and ended up finishing something like 25th. Still proud of her for doing it though, cross country in winter time takes some real grit.

Holly in the School Newsletter AGAIN

Spot Holly having fun on "Dress to Express Yourself" event at school.

Bees Vs Woodford

All the football was cancelled today due to heavy rain but Joshua's rugby was still on which meant an early start for me with a Trek all the way over to Woodford in Northeast London. Talk about a game of 2 halves, the Bees were completely out of it in the first half goin 21-0 down. Then the second half completely outplayed Woodford to make a really strong comeback to finish 24-17. So despite winning the second half they just gave themselves too much of a mountain to climb in the second half. I reckon another 5 mins and they would have got a final try to level the game.

Team photo at the end of todays Woodford game, some very muddy boys.

Joshua chose to not shower at the rugby club and brought all his mud home, resulting in my shower tray looking like this.

Poker Night

We haven't played poker in donkey's years and for some weird reason the kids have been asking to learn recently. So we dusted off the poker table and poker chips on Friday night and started to teach them. Josh and Brandon kind of got the idea but didn't really understand what hands they were trying to make. Holly was a bit clueless and was a bit gung-ho with her chips despite having Tina's help.

They actually got bored of poker pretty quickly and wanted to move on to Blackjack which we ended up playing for about 3 hours solid and learnt that Joshua is a bit of a hustler cleaning up most of the chips. Although he clearly plays online and was breaking out some dodgy rules I hadn't heard of with splitting hands, doubling up, treble payouts on Blackjack etc.

Dusted off the old poker table which hasn't seen the light of day in years.

We played Poker for about an hour and then moved on to Blackjack.

Early Birthday Celebration's at F1 Arcade St Paul's

As Brandon's 15th birthday fell on a school Monday we decided to celebrate a day early and had booked him in for aa F1 simulation racing event at F1 Arcade in St Paul's, London on the Sunday. We managed to drag Joshua out with us and actually had a really nice day out walking around London, eating good food, and getting whipped by Brandon at the F1 simulation.

The simulators were top notch with motion, haptic feedback, surround sound, 2 large screens for various views and replays etc. The venue was amazing with some 69 simulators and as you would expect the decor is racing themed, although the background music got a bit much after an hour or so!. The drinks were expensive, but then this is central London. The food was amazing and in addition to Brandon loving racing game the other reason for taking him here for his birthday was that they had Wagyu burgers on the menu. Brandon has had a thing for Wagyu since watching the film called "The Gentlemen" and it didn't disappoint. Not cheap at £26 for a burger and chips, but without a doubt the best burger I have ever had.

My tactic of letting Brandon have a cider before racing didn't really work and made no difference to his reactions and driving skills as he absolutely wiped the floor with all of us over 5 races lasting 45 mins! Joshua and Brandon had a simulator each and then me and Holly shared a simulator swapping around each race. Both Joshua and Holly were both leading at one point in a race, but Brandon had the clean sweep of easily winning all 5 races leaving me eating humble pie with my Wagyu burger!

Whilst in London we also did quite a bit of walking and took in a load of sites including St Paul's, Millennium Bridge, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, HMS Belfast and so on. We were having the usual family game to see who could take the best picture and this meant Holly was blasting the Kismet WhatsApp group with loads of picture (sorry all). Anyway here are some of the pictures from the day. Apologies for putting them in reverse order but for some reason the laptop keeps putting them in this way and there are too many for me to copy/paste to reverse.

Tower Bridge looking spectacular at night.

Holly wanted her picture with every statue that we walked past.

The guns of HMS Belfast.

Me and the boys did go onboard this many years ago when we went to Wembley to watch England.

Holly and another statue!

The other end of HMS Belfast again looking amazing lit of on the Thames river.

Look closely and this is a large metal bike full of zoo animals with Holly riding in the middle!

Me and wifey enjoying a day out in London with the kiddies.

Another angle of Tower Bridge.

After F1 Arcade Brandon wanted to walk down to the Tower of London and see HMS Belfast.

Tower of London from the Tower Bridge.

You get get some amazing pictures of Tower Bridge lit up at night.

And another.

And another,

Walking around the Tower of London.

When we finished in F1 Arcade St Paul's looked amazing in the night skies.

Inside a very lively F1 Arcade.

Very F1 themed decor as you would expect.

Wagyu burger, expensive at £26 - but simply the best burger ever.

Joshua, Holly and Brandon racing side by side on the simulators.

Me and H swapped out every race.

Joshua out of the house and having fun with the family.

Joshua actually really enjoyed the racing despite not wanting to go.

Logged in and ready to go.

I thought I might be a bit competitive with Brandon, but nope.

Sassy Holly.

Brandon was elite level and won every race.

The story of the day.

Me, H and Tina outside St Paul's.

Great to see all 3 of them having fun, although there was some very dirty racing at times.

Quite amazed at how much Holly enjoyed it and in fact she didn't want to keep swapping out with me!

He better not cross his arms like that when he learns to drive next year!

I tried getting this picture when Holly was in the lead and just as I took it Joshua overtook her!

But this little demon was hot on the tails.

Joshua on the F1 simulator.

I was kind of hoping H would be too small so that I could have more races!

Proper F1 style wheels on the simulators.

Giving Brandon a berry cider before racing didn't seem to inhibit his racing skills in the slightest.

The entrance to F1 Arcade.

Holly and Tina on the Millennium Bridge.

Stunning views of London and such a beautiful day for a stroll around our capital.

Tina and the birthday boy.

The Millennium Bridge.

Holly and Tina outside St Paul's.

Another selfie of me and T.

Me and the birthday boy (yes he is taller than me now!).

The giant pillars of St Paul's.

The front entrance of St Paul's.

Another Brandon pose at St Paul's (it may be his back but at least he let me take a picture of him!).

Family day out in London starting at St Paul's.