I say, that about beats the record, doesn't it? Nearly four months since I last posted. Been in Switzerland, Sweden, and England since; and I'm now working towards a maths exam in January, and of course my biology in the summer. Autumn has really set in here, with trees losing their leaves, a lot of rain, cold wind, fluffier cats. I miss going to school. We'll be in England for Christmas.

 

 

A week's holiday at my grandfather's and uncle's, with my cousins-once-removed, going to the beach and also camping, which were lots of fun. Then back here in time for my results yesterday...and guess what! To my utter astonishment I got a mention très bien (highest honours), with an average of 17/20! And there I was, worrying that I wouldn't have the 13/20 I need to apply to university, or even that I might completely fail. But honestly, I couldn't believe my eyes... I thought my lowest mark would be history-geography, around eight or possibly lower, but I got sixteen! My actual lowest was French lit, where I got 13, which is pretty decent, considering I thought I'd get 9 or 10. I'm so happy :)

I've had oral exams for the past three weeks, and the written are next week, so you can imagine I'm feeling a bit stressed out. Shouldn't really be mucking around and posting on here, but I need to distract myself. So what's new? We went to England in May, and the poppies are out here. And we've got two kittens! We were originally going to give them both away, but after their mother, Gingerpaw, died in an accident, we've decided to keep Mulberry. She, being black and white, is named after Humbug (whose other name, if you remember, was Bumbleberry). Otherwise, nothing much new. Everything's rather a blur of revision...

 

Spring holiday! It's lovely to be at home in this season, with all the flowers and the sunlight and the butterflies. Had more mock exams just before we broke up, and I'm waiting nervously for the teachers to put our results online...I wish they'd hurry up! French was a bit of a disaster, but I should have at least a pass in the other topics. Now I'm working on my dossiers for English, Spanish, droit and cinéma. Very tiring, but the first two are nearly done. Droit is a fifth there and as for cinéma - well, I've written the title and my name, so that's a start, isn't it?

Otherwise I've started working on creating a short film of the springtimey nature; the grasses blowing gently in the breeze, butterflies on the lilac... I'd like to put more insects and spiders in it, but I'm having trouble with subjects which at a height of less than two feet or so, as that's how tall my tripod is. I'm going to see if I can't get a smaller tripod or something when I go to England on the 5th, but by the time we get back a) there'll be school again and b) it might be a little late weather-wise. So I'll have to see!

Well, in the three-month interval between now and my last post, life's just been rolling on as per usual. We've had some interesting and not very logical weather (the photos below were taken on subsequent days), and school's been good but tiring with all the homework and revisions. After the snow and rain it seems spring is here at last, however, and the extremely delayed dandelions, daisies and various other flowers are at last appearing, as well as various different insects. On the table next to me I have a jar full of black spiky caterpillars, which I found this afternoon in the garden.

I have another mock exam in a few weeks, just before the April holidays - and my oral exams are in mid-May and the beginning of June.

There was a massive downpour of rain on Monday, and as a result from 7.25am to 5.15pm I had wet feet and wet trousers. Besides the cold, having wet clothes is just so disagreable. The rain continued, to a lesser extent, on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the delighftul result that the stream is back! The rubbish photo below illustrates what it was like on Wednesday, and according to my sister it was still like that yesterday. I'm hoping it'll have calmed down a bit today and that the water will be a little clearer because I'm hoping to take some underwater photos - preferably without having to be underwater myself. When the stream flowing as it is in the photo below, it's about as deep as it is wide, and deeper in certain places. Perhaps at the bottom of one of the millfalls, where the pool is fairly shallow at the edges, I might have more luck.