Little Hedgehog

today i am sad. and here is why: today is exactly 1 year since i lost little hedgehog.

little hedgehog (also known as hodgepig) was my most favourite teddy ever. he was a tiny little furry hedgehog which was just the right size to fit in my coat pocket. i took him absolutely everywhere with me until i started secondary school - then i thought i might look a bit odd carrying him about but he still lived in my school bag. at night, he slept next to me on my pillow. i'd lost him sever hundred times, i was always leaving him in the school playground or in the garden, under the tranpoline. i''ve left him in a countless number of the shops in bromley. he's been left at my grandparent's house and had to be posted home and when i broke my foot in year 6, i left him in the hospital. but i always got him back. last year, on this day, i was in egypt, scuba diving in the red sea with my dad - something that i enjoy a lot. so every morning we (me, my dad, little hedgehog) would leave at half past six, to get to the dive centre by 7. we would then get the dive centre mini bus to the docks and be on our dive boat by 9 o'clock. we would spend the day, diving, snorkling, eating rice ('coz that's the only think little hedgehog and i would eat) and reading books in the sun. it was our 4th day of diving (my dad and i were trying to get to 15 by the end of that holiday - we didn't manage it) and i was having an excellent day, we dived at Ras Katy in the morning and Near Garden in the afternoon, we'd seen an octopus - which makes me happy and 10 barracudas - which made my dad happy (can you tell i've just been typing up my log book so far) anyhoo, we got off the boat and my dad said he'd buy me and Tia (my little 4 year old friend) an ice-cream - which was also very exciting. it wasn't until we were nearly back at the hotel that i realised that i didn't have little hedgehog. i was completely distraught, i looked for him for hours. i even walked down to the docks on my own that night to try and find him but he was well and truely gone. even though it's 1 year later, and it's a bit stupid, i still miss him and i still feel guilty that i didn't find him. i like to think that sarah (my dive instructor at the time) will have found him and picked him up and i hope he will be living on the dive boat, enjoying the sun and making new friends, or that Tia will have found him and taken him home to be with her many other toys.

?!

i woke at quarter to 5 when my alarm went off thismorning (i have no idea why it was so early). it's the first time in ages that i've actually woken up when my alarm went off. anyhoo, i must have decided that being awake that early means it's a school day. so i got up. i had a shower and put my school uniform on and packed my school bag and... that's all i remember. i woke up at 8, in my school uniform, sitting on my very tidily made bed. which is also very odd, i don't ever make my bed. is this proof that i'm finally losing it?

a brief encounter with my mother.

"what's that burning smell?"

"what burning smell?"

"you know, that smell, i assumed you'd burnt something?"

"no, i can't smell anything"

"ok, what about the smoke?"

"what smoke?"

"i know you must have noticed it, you've opened the windows and turned the fire alarm off."

"oh! that smoke. yeah."

"well where's it from?"

"oh, that'll be those potatoes i burnt earlier!"

"ok, that'll also explain the smell"

"what smell?"

need i say more?

(and she wonders why i spend most of my life in my room?!)

happy porret and the scary lady with popcorn in her hair (and probably swine flu)

hello. i went to see Harry Potter last night (or as i keep putting: Happy Porret). i shan't review every bit of it, because that would be boring and i'd probably get it all wrong, so i will say this:

i liked it, i did all the right things (jumped at the loud bits, hid at the scary bits, laughed at the funny bits and cried at the end).

my dad asked when it was going to finish every 10 minutes and kept asking who people were/what they were doing/ why harry didn't just 'zapp' them.

my mum said it would have been better if johnny depp was in it.

jordan fell asleep.

i would have enjoyed it more if it weren't for the fact i was slowly freezing to death in my seat and if i weren't quite so angry. here is why:

my mother went into the cinema to get some seats whilst my dad parked the car and jordan and i bought sweets and popcorn. my mother has an extraordinary talent for choosing the worst seats in the whole place, the ones she chose were directly under the air conditioning, the floor was awfully sticky but most importantly, there was about 3 cm between our chairs and the row in front. that was ok for my mother and jordan because they're shorties (honestly, they are), it wasn't too bad for my father as he sat with his legs stretched out into the isle-bit, but it caused a bit of a problem for me. i have quite long legs (unproportionally long) you see, by rights i should be a short person but my long legs make me a normal height (i also think they're what causes me to fall over as often as i do). anyhoo, i had nothing to do with them, so i squished them against the seat in front and tried to think about other things. 10 minutes into the film, the woman in front (who i can't help noticing was very short) turns round and says "excuse me, would you mind moving your legs, they're squished against my chair." this confuses me because a) did she think i hadn't noticed that my legs were rather squished? and b) where did she expect me to put them? so i ignored her, until 10 minutes later she turned round again, i ignored her again. the 3rd time i asked her where she expected me to put my legs, she replied "i don't care, anywhere else". so i did, i took off my shoes and placed my legs over the seat in front, over her left shoulder. i got a disgusted look, jordan, my father and i were in hysterics but i moved them after a dirty look from my mother. so i spent the rest of the film "sitting like i was doing an impression of a pretzel" (as jordan put it). but i had my revenge in the only way i saw fit. how would you get your revenge when sitting in a cinema with nothing but swine-flu and some popcorn?

only 2 legs

today is comemoration day at my school, it is quite possibly the best day of the year, and i wasn't there. because i'm STILL ill. there is a cake competition and my class made a multicolored cactus-wearing-a-sombrero, sweet filled (like a piniata) cake. i can't wait to see the pictures! i am sad because i missed it but more sad because i was supposed to be in the 3 legged race. and as emma pointed out - she's only 2 legs without me. we practiced and everything. we were going to win and if we didn't win, we were going to come second. nicole and peppers were competeing from S. they won last year but this year we had tactics... if they were ahead of us, we'd have pushed them over! to be honest, last time we didn't actually finish the race, she fell over, then i fell over, then we couldn't stop laughing. this year was our chance to redeem ourselves and me and this stupid swine flu have ruined it all. oh well, next year then. definately.