Grantchester

Here's some lines of poetry that I recorded at Byron's Pool. They come from a called 'The Old Vicarage, Grantchester', by Rupert Brooke.

In Grantchester, in Grantchester! -
Some, it may be, can get in touch
With Nature there, Or Earth, or such.
***
I only know that you may lie
Day-long and watch the Cambridge sky,
And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
Until the centuries blend and blur
In Grantchester, in Grantchester ....
Still in the dawnlit waters cool
His ghostly Lordship swims his pool,
And tries the strokes, essays the tricks,
Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx. 

Punting!!!!

On Tuesday 25th June we rented a punt at Scudamores Punting Company though the rent was only a day, well less than a day - 90 mins, though it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Amazing. It was amazing in lots of ways. One of the reasons that made it amazing was because Lydia dropped her toy penguin into the water. Jacob kept pointing out birds (though I didn't see much, mainly swifts and ducks.). For some of the time Bec and I talked about a little man we made up.

My artwork

We've been learning about art this week. Mum asked to draw a still life of some fruit. She taught us about light and shade. Here is mine:

Le Paris

On Friday the 7th of June we went to (drumroll) Paris!!!!!! I did a lot of great stuff in Paris such as Le Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower), so I am going to write about the things that are the most memorable:

1. The first time I ever saw the Eiffel Tower. I saw it on Sunday 9 June. It was one of my favourite days I ever had.  Later that day we went to the Tuileries Gardens. At the Tuileries Gardens I had my first Carousel ride. I also did an activity at the Tuileries Gardens - it was to design your own French garden. Later we went on the trampolines there!

Place de la Concorde

when I first saw the Eiffel Tower!!

on the carousel

doing my French garden

the finished works of art!!

jumping on the trampoline

2. On Monday the 10 June we went to Eiffel Tower. We climbed to the second level which is 710 steps!!!

climbing the tower!!

at the very top.

3. On Sunday 9 June I went to the Musee De l'Orangerie. I really liked it because I got to see some of the original paintings of The Waterlilies by Claude Monet (my favourite artist!). They looked really real if you looked at them from a far distance, but if you looked at them closely you could see the brush strokes from the paint brush.

4. We also went out to a French cafe called Mogador and had a hot chocolate and Beccy had a lemonade. I ordered the hot chocolate myself in French!

my hot chocolate

Nottingham, Nottingham and Nottingham

A few weeks ago (before we went to Paris) we went to Nottingham. First we went to Nottingham Castle. It had a lot of stuff about Robin Hood but we weren't there to learn about Robin Hood, we were there to learn about Joseph Woodward. He was put in prison for burning down a hovel (which is a type of shed) with a riot. Anyway, at Nottingham Castle we went on a cave tour. There are caves underneath the castle for soldiers to go up and people to go down for safety. On the cave tour we saw old steps where they used to come up and down. There's a story about how in the 1330s King Edward III's soldiers went up through the caves to capture Roger de Mortimer.

Then we went to the Galleries of Justice where Joseph Woodward was put in prison. We all went on a tour and three criminals (actors) told us about the place. We even got to see the court room where he was found guilty. In the court the actor, Robin Hood gave some people little sheets with the details of real criminals from the past. The people who got those sheets had to pretend to be those people.

Duxford

OnWednesday 5th June we went to Duxford Airbase. Some planes were flying (they were war aeroplanes) and we also saw some that were on display.

One of my favourite things was going into a couple of the planes. One of them was called the Concorde. It was the fastest passenger plane in the world. There was a crash that ended the Concorde's flights. Most days on the flights people complained about it being uncomfortable and noisy. Then one day somebody had dropped a piece of metal on the runway and it tripped on the metal and flew up heading for the bottom of the plane and it blew up. Then everybody said 'we're getting rid of this - it's dangerous, it's noisy and it's uncomfortable!'.

Did you know that people had to speak on telephones so that their enemies couldn't hear them?

Here are some photos of Duxford Airbase:

Bec and me in front of the Concorde

The Operations Room from WWII. In the Operation Room they would plan their attacks and defence as they got their information

Flying a helicopter!

Flying a plane!

and flying another plane.

I hope you liked looking at the photos!

When the bees came to town

On Monday 27th May, we went to the Botanic Gardens. We learned about bees there in a bee section where there was a bee hive with bees coming out. We learned that bees are attracted to particular colours and shapes of flowers. The colours are: mauve, blue, yellow and pink. They like tubular flowers. It is quite common to find bees near tublular flowers.

When we went home we had a little rest and then we went downstairs. When we went down we saw a whole swarm of bees. There was something like 1000 of them! A man came to the door soon after (our next door neighbours had phoned him) and he said that he'd go out and get the bees. The man was wearing a bee protection suit. The suit had this protection face cover with lots of spaces but bees couldn't sting him with his suit on.

Bees can only be in a group with a queen bee, otherwise they have to find a new group. The man got a box and a brush and tipped our table up so that the bees could go on it. It's easier to get bees off a hanging thing, not the ground. At first he got some of them, then he waited for them and moved the table to another place and then he got some more bees. He didn't get all of them but he let us listen to the bees. They made this sounds that was sort of like honeycomb in your throat. It sounded like a tingly feeling in your throat.

In the end, he said that he said he got about a thousand bees into the box. Wow! He hoped he had got the queen bee (which he called the leader) into the box because if he did, the bees would just be worried because they couldn't find the queen and find another group - out of our garden!

My sleepover

On Sunday the 19th of May I had a sleepover at my nanna and grandad's. But before thatI was taken to the Cambridge City Folk Museum. At the museum we went to the kitchen. I put on an apron and pretended to be the shopkeeper. There were lots of things that were laid out on the table to play with. In the last room which was called the childhood room where all the toys were kept In the childhood rooms it had the old dolls house and a replica you could play with. There were lots of other toys and even some books.

At the end of the museum we went to the shop and bought a game called heads and tales.

With nanna and grandad

Wearing boaters with grandad at the Folk Museum

Nanna and I pretending to be at the seaside

What I know about a few of my relatives and ancestors

Today I have learnt a bit about my ancestors and relatives.

1. Richard Kingsnorth from the Commonwealth time (1649-1660) had a story just like John Bunyan.They both Preached to Baptists. But trying to hide from the people who would try to get them in prison. Anyway John Bunyan was found a number of times and put in prison. As for Richard he was safe and nobody found him.
2. Even though Richard had the main story there were  people who came after him.Such as the Pullens. 

We walked up the footpath to the house where Richard Kingsnorth lived and led the first Baptist church there.

The beginning of the walk started at Chapel Lane (it got this name because it was the way the villagers would walk to the church)

The house where Richard Kingsnorth lived in the 1600s (and the church met)

William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce was a hero! He was a hero because he did the hard work of helping abolish the slave trade. Also his friends Clarkson, Pitt, Newton, More, Charles Fox and some more people helped him.

The slave trade was where people from other countries such as Africa were taken to different countries to work. They did things such as getting sugar. All the jobs they did were making other people richer while they were treated terribly.

He married Barbara and had six children and for some of the time he lived in London.

William Wilberforce statue at St John's College

Romantic poetry

On Friday mum took us to Byron's Pool to write Romantic poetry. She told us that we should write about Byron's pool and how we feel about it.

Here's the poem that I wrote. I hope you like it!

The blossoms by the water's edge

The water moves
like a gentle tunnel,
leading to the blossoms.
The trees move in the windy air
beside the lake where the sun shines down.
I see a cottage far down the lake.
I'm happy even if I just see the trees
Blowing in the windy breeze.

About the poem Daffodils by Wordsworth

Today, I was learning about some Romantic poets that had a bit of their life in Cambridge. We read some poems written by Coleridge, Byron and Wordsworth.

My favourite poem was Daffodils, by William Wordsworth. I liked how it started off quite gently and then it suddenly had a big difference with the sound as he sees the daffodils. He suddenly is feeling even happier than he was.

I also like it because it was like a dream or even a day filled with wonder. My favourite part is the last bit when he says:

For oft when on my couch I lie,
in vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon the inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
and dances with daffodils.

It's about when he's remembering the daffodils and it makes him feel really happy.

Seals

On Saturday the fifth of May we went to Blakeney Point. Blakeney Point is a place where you can watch birds and seals. First we went for a walk around the marshy area.

Looking at the wildflowers - I worked out later that they were Gorse flowers, using my wildflower book.

To see the seals you have to go for a boat trip unless you have super dupper good binoculars. Here are some pictures from the boat trip.

Some boats that we saw.

The seal colony

Two seals fighting with some seals behind them.

Then we went to Oxburgh Hall. At Oxburgh Hall we went down the priests hole. A priest's hole is where priests used to hide when they were in danger of being captured. Some Catholics let them go and have a priest hole in their house. Here is a picture of me coming out of it.

We also went to the gardens. The grounds were big but there was a smaller formal garden called a 'parterre'.

Bec and me in the garden next to the moat.