Duthie Park, Drive to Holyhead & Ferry to Dublin

We went to Duthie Park again the other day and visited the David Welch Winter Gardens - a huge display of indoor plants from many different climates of the world. Here are some of the different sections.

I took photos of the different types of Venus fly trap plants - there were at least 5 different types. Jo got a bumblebee to climb onto her finger and I took a picture of it. Then we took hte bumblebee and put it in the venus fly traps but the bumblebee didn't want to go down and climbed back out. I was taking a video of it happening and was very disappointed when the bumblebee came back out.

Another part of the gardens had strawberries growing in it but they weren't ripe - some had slugs in them.

We also found a plant called 'sleeping grass'. If you touch the leaves of the plant the leaves close up and after about 10 minutes it opens up again. The plant thinks there's danger. We took a video of Matthew and Jo touching the plant and you can see the leaves closing. At night the plant shuts its leaves and goes to 'sleep' and then opens them again in the morning.

Another section of the gardens had scented plants. When we touched the leaves of the plant it would leave a smell on our fingers - I hated the smell of some of them. You can see Jo and Matt sniffing their fingers.

We left Aberdeen on Thursday at 6pm and started driving to Holyhead. We arrived at the hotel along the way at about midnight. We had about 6 hours sleep and then we were up and driving on to Holyhead (in Wales). We drove through England and part of Wales and arrived in Holyhead before 10am. Here's a photo of a tower we saw on the edge of a mountain in Wales (taken in a moving car).

We listened to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and finished it just as we drove onto the ferry. Charlie was pretty excited when he found the last golden ticket.

The ferry that is taking us to Ireland is massive. We drove our car onto the ferry and there were heaps of other cars and vans too - there were two layers of cars on the storage deck. The trucks came on last. The ferry has five decks.

The river dee

On Sunday after the meeting. We went for a drive and had lunch. I had steak and guinness pie and soft vegetables.

We went and saw the river Dee. There were small fish jumping up the rocks as you can see in the picture. We went to some big rocks. Dad and I was playing chase and I jumped onto a rock which was one metre away and my foot slipped and it bent back and it hurt!!! I gave dad a skimming rock and it skimmed six times. Dad and Jo went in the water with there bathers on. Dad said"IT WAS FREEZING COLD". Jo said "It is all right". I wet Jo, Mum and Dad but not Matt sadly. We got to pull funny faces as you can see in the picture. You would think that I am basically off.

My bedroom

Hi Everyone
I thought I'd tell you something about our life here.

I have a bedroom to myself that looks out onto the road. There is a school over the road - I can see childen going to school everyday. The children wear grey pants/skirts or dresses and white shirts to school. I think our school uniform is better than theirs.

I have my desk to myself and usually have started my schoolwork before 8am and finish before 1pm.

There is a piano in my room which I don't play!

The other room that faces onto the street is where we play Monopoly and do our Bible readings...Dad has won two games so far and at the moment I'm winning.

We are working on our Monopoly SOSE project - I have finished Oxford Street and half of Regent St.

Matt and Jo are sharing a bunk bed. Matt's on top for 1 1/2 months and then it's Jo's turn. Dad and Mum are in the loft upstairs. We have small kitchen, a normal dining table and a very very big backyard - but lot's of it is garden and the fences are about a metre high, so balls can easily go over! One did on the first day.

When we're eating lunch outside there are lots of bees flying right near us, landing on us and our food. There are heaps of butterflies and insects, we've also seen some bumblebees too.

Our house is joined together with our neighbour and so are many others in Aberdeen. The streets are narrow and often two cars can't pass on the small roads. Some of the roads are cobbled roads and very bumpy.

We've joined at gym and go 5 times a week after our schoolwork - we play basketball, soccer, all kinds of sports including badminton. There's a 25m pool there - Aberdeen has no 50m pools!

On Wednesday night people came over for Bible Class - I could hear them having the Bible readings. Three adults came (altogether there were 5 people).