19th April - Well that didn't last long!

 I was doing so well! Writing a post every night. Then the Easter break started and the exhaustion level rocketed! My first school holiday since I returned to work so I'm impressed I managed during the day. They were all really good.

So, in that time, we had the two days of falconry and the daily trail the rest of the week. It was so quiet at the beginning of the week though, possibly because of the big weekend. We would normally have had a big event of some description all week, usually fully booked before we get to lunch time. But this year we had a trail which was really well received, giving the children the focus to look at the guns and try and spot the details they may normally overlook, like the tiny eagle on the Cherbourg gun outside the first gallery, or the acorns on Le Fameux in the Artillery Hall.

This weekend though, wow! Action packed! I drove straight from work at 4pm to Oxford which was about 1½hr on the road. Not bad going for a bank holiday Friday, almost spot on what was estimated on the Sat Nav.

Saturday was a chilled morning which was nice because we went for lunch then drove to Birmingham for the Stand By For Action concert at the B:Music Symphony Hall. It was unbelievable! I loved every minute of it! Especially as my friend, Jo, insisted we get the VIP tickets. Am I glad she insisted on that! I got to meet some of the big wigs including Jamie Anderson, son of the late, great Gerry Anderson.

Wayne Forester, voice actor for New Captain Scarlet and actor in Space Precinct

Nicholas Briggs, part of the Big Finish team, involved with creating the new audio adventures

Richard James, actor in Space Precinct

Richard Harvey on the left, composer of the Terrahawks theme and Jamie Anderson

An amazing cosplayer by the name of Willow

Host for the evening, Jon Culshaw who has been lending his vocal talents as Jeff Tracy in the audio books

Lee Sullivan, comic artist

Sunday was another busy one with the Horseboarding UK event. I'll admit I did get a bit overwhelmed. I was under the impression I was there just to take photos and then they were like so if you could go over to the other side of the field and be in charge of telling people if the riders or boarders foul. Yeah, way too much for me. Tipped me over a bit. They were really kind though. Lisa took pity on me and let me go with her to the pit gate where I could take the photos still but also get involved as I felt confident to.

All I can say is thank goodness for sport mode! I took over 2000 photos and I spent a lot of today going through the first 1000 deleting the rubbish ones and cropping the ones that are too far out. I'll do the rest later.

Yesterday we went out for lunch which was nice and I spent some time doing some origami for my Craft badge.

I also completed my first official badge today! Finished enough reviews to earn my Critic badge! Technically I already have one in the form of Community Service but I didn't have to do anything new to that as I've been scouting for 12 years.

So I'll type up my reviews for you now!

Oh yeah, I'm a bit behind on my gratitude diary.

1. My friends, especially Jo. Encouraging me to go to those events this weekend had given me some epic memories
2. Making new friends at the Horseboarding event and at the concert!
3. Kind people who are happy to share things
4. Time off. I might have had a very long time off and I'm so glad to be back, but time off is nice, especially when it's so busy!
5. Sunshine! The weekend could have been so different if it had been cold or wet or both!