Went through the end of Enrichment week with the tiny year 7s, who were all ridiculously over excited on the ghost walk-I'm really surprised at how few people think rationally about the 'supernatural', but it was nonetheless quite fun. I spent the next week almost frantically finding out what dates everyone is free over the holidays, which makes me feel very organised, played a decent game of basketball rather badly (we lost, of course ). I did a lot of BMO questions, which are very interesting and ridiculously difficult. In German we made a brilliant load of props for Der Besuch Der Alten Dame (very, very weird play), and then even better did a puppet show of Goodbye Lenin, which was great.

We found that rounders was much better played with rugby tackling, and Matt and I started working on being awesome doing splinter cell moves (still haven't got the really cool ones sorted, though). Over the weekend we helped out at the scout bonfire-made it and lit it, as well as lots of painting an extension and playing with ancient but very satisfying blades and axes. Did a few decent front flips on the bouncy castle and played waayy too much charades. Monday night I went out and heard Joe's band, who are surprisingly good, and the night was much improved. It's all good.

Climbing weekend was very good, and every day the weather brightened up just in time, and it was very atmospheric walking up the roaches in the mist. Did a few quite difficult climbs, though nothing amazing, and ate delicious bilberry, apple and custard stew, thanks to old lady Abi. 'Broke into' the cottage and went walking in the river in flood, which was great fun, though a bit chilly, and though I lost my sunglasses. Still can't stand on one leg and pick custard creams off the floor very well, though.

Got back and had some very pleasant days, one in Allestree park kiteboarding with Tom, Lukes & al, and one in Darley which was haphazard, getting rained back home, playing cards, and then heading out again. Plus, Thomas has been in Derby, so I've spent many an evening playing backgammon, fixing his knife (which he then gave me as thanks ), and making and eating lovely blackberry yoghurt. Shame about Ernest 'Nuttingham'.

Anyway, I've also got a new bike now, which is very nice shiny and red, and spent ages adjusting it, have fixed my computer so it no longer overheats as badly, done loads of work on physics coursework in the sunshine, trod out a walk for my mum around Hall Dale, and generally been quite productive, when I haven't been sleeping or playing computer games.

Callum, Abi, Matt and I ran a marathon plus (an extra mile 'cause we got lost ) in 6 hours, and we won medals and a trophy for being the first mixed gender team back. I always forget how incredible it feels running, especially over the downs in the middle of the night, even if my camel back pissed all down my shorts. So far, nothing in my life beats it. Plus, lots of jumping around and watching a sword swallower Friday night, lots of showing off at circus skills (learning 'suicide' on diabolo), and generally an awesome weekend. I can even still walk.

Yesterday, with enrichment week starting, I was with year 8s, who weren't as irritating as I expected, though there are a few head cases. I manned a checkpoint, climbed a roof and a tree, both to a mixture of consternation and surprise, and got a free ice cream, and that was just the morning. In the afternoon I redeemed my year 9 rollercoaster failure, and working just on my own built an incredibly neat and elegant system and then donated the actually effective part of my design to another group. Finally, I got to choose which design actually won, based on the coolness of the design, and it was blatantly the loop the loop which won it. Then, I got abducted from walking in the rain to an A team meeting and ate lots of snacks in my new Aquila shirt-finally arrived.

The weekend before was a party in the park on the Saturday, which was good fun, with rounders, an incredibly weird martial art consisting of wrestling to clip a crab on your opponent while both of you are hanging off a tree, aerobie, and generally a very pleasant day in the park. That was followed on Sunday with the Wheeldon Avenue party, which was good fun, with far too much food, lots of adults getting tipsy and lots of children needing minding. Ha, I even got payed £5 for helping out and enjoying myself.

Water wars at explorers on the Friday was brilliant-exhilarating even if it wasn't really warm enough, and even if the time spent on water bomb bandoliers and a launcher wasn't redeemed. It included a crazy obstacle course, including half swimming through a flooded boat, and crawling over freshly cut grass when soaked-not the most pleasant obstacle. The week before we were showing off to the scouts, which went well, I think, and I even managed to remember how to play cricket quite well. Plus, a new bouncy castle!-it even has a slide...

Musical performer and dramatic monologue was also very good, though in my opinion the monologues need to be more subtle and understated-there're enough Thespians in the world as it is. You can see why two rounds of auditions were needed for the music-they were all incredibly good, though I think Daniela was far and above the winner. The proper folk singing at the start was also brilliant, and almost made up for death march I'm A Believer. O_o

Sonnenallee was also very good, albeit ridiculously difficult to understand, and that caused some very awkward silences in the workshop at the end. Still, it's all been good, and I even managed to write my two research essays passably well, I think. Unrelatedly, Cambridge was absolutely amazing-Emma is lovely (it has a swimming pool!) and Natural Sciences (Physical) is a great course, which, furthermore, I actually have a decent chance of getting into, I think.

It was a very good birthday-I was given a seat, a brownie, oreos, all for free! Even the Chemistry exam wasn't too bad (unlike the Mech exams, plus fire alarm, last week). Plus, I got given a pyromaniac's joy, which was very good for lighting candles, and my 'totally unexpected' trumpet mouthpiece, as well as lots of new very nice music-Eluveitie are truly awesome. Zach Cordon's a bit weirdy, but very pleasant to listen to, especially wandering through the European street market and the library. On that note, I read a pretty good comic, Preacher, though only a few bits are as good as most others I've read, I think. Phillip Reeve's new one, Fever Crumb, is extremely good, albeit read extremely quickly.

Explorers the cub scout fun day was rained off, so we spent an evening lashing poles together in the rain, and the next morning untying them again, and packing them away. Meh, that's life, and at least I got to sleep in a hammock, albeit indoors, and fail at various challenges (you just can't hold your breath while laughing). Then Monday evening, we went on a decent bike ride for Sun Run training, Bradley and Brailsford, with picture postcard views every turn.

Then, the weekend just past, we went down to East Anglia for a sailing regatta, and stayed with grandparents plus dog. Lots of very good food and lots of sitting in the sunshine. A walk around the marshy borders of Grafham water, which are incredibly quiet, and have a wonderful atmosphere, and a lot of climbing on playgrounds around the lake. I got to go out crewing Sunday, but only got one race, and a lot of drifting around the place in low wind. Nevermind, it was still very nice, and I even managed to man over board.

Also, running in Darley Park Monday afternoon in the heavy rain, throwing an aerobie around (chased by dogs), watching Good Bye Lenin, finally finishing all the exams, pretending to be a German businessman for Tradefair, not making too much of a twat of myself, it's all good.

Spring Bank was damn good this year. Spent some time in the week before helping to set up tents and the big rope course, carrying logs from place to place, holding stuff and lashing stuff, but nowhere near as much time as Dave spent. Rather nice hanging off a log lashed high off the ground. Then, in the camp itself, I was making sure little scouts and cubs didn't kill themselves, which was, at times, extremely boring, and great at others. Made high ropes easier for a lot of children, and even got called into piggy back duty for one girl. Likewise teaching children how to prussock, which was interesting at first, but then just repetitive. Sitting on the high ropes course was best, slowing children down, stopping them from crashing into the tree, and then sending them on their way. Only had one real mishap, and the girl jumped onto the safety line very happily. Sitting/hanging on the platform in the sunshine, very pleasant.

Overall, the ropes course and all of Aquila's stuff was basically awesome. Best activity there, apparently, and longest queue. Some children were fearless, jumping off the ropes and on again like monkeys, three others wet themselves in fear. It was that cool. Two snapped ropes thanks to massive force on the pulleys (Drum Hill Site Crew were actually useful!), and two sessions out of action, but hey, that's the price of awesomeness. Then, of course, we had to take everything down again. We got everything down surprisingly quickly-lots of "climb tree, untie knot, jump down, repeat". Besides that, I got a reputation as 'epic ninja Chris' thanks to tree climbing, which feels great, and my hammock (thank you Abi) was all too popular. The evenings were good and relaxed, with Becki's birthday one night (too much bad music, but what the hell, still fun), poi, diabolo, lightsticks, and general chatting late into the next morning.

Then, over the next week, I had some good time in the park, landboarding or just sitting there talking, a good walk through head height rape seed plants (I should have brought a machete for some parts ), jumping over gates, sitting in the library (good comic-Love and Rockets/Human Diastrophism. Feels like you're reading Marquez), buying a new trumpet mouthpiece, getting a bus to and belaying scouts up Black Rocks, and generally relaxing, until Sunday, yet another park party! This time mainly playing with ropes in trees, so making a rope ladder, which everyone promptly ignored, being hoisted on the 'safety' line instead. I managed to put a hammock up, 6 metres in the air, which was brilliant, and we got lots of videos and pictures of human pyramids, ascensions of Christs, human baskets, spinning people round by the feet, dive rolls and limbo. All great fun. I just feel guilty about the people who couldn't make it when we changed the date around.

The past two days of school have been pretty dull, 'cause it's just revising, which I'm ignoring, though there've been some interesting number problems, and we're watching Goodbye Lenin in German. Finally, it's my birthday tomorrow!

So, yeah, General Studies and German are now done-General Studies I just rambled about the subject for pages so I'll be surprised if I did well, but, well, it's only General Studies. German I think I did quite well, though for both speaking and writing I only thought of all the phrases I could/should have used as I was walking out "l'esprit d'escalier". The German speaking was set up so scarily, though-a massive room and you were sitting in one corner of it surrounded by the microphone and stuff. Ach, I'll have to wait and see.

Much more fun than exams is managing to get out and do stuff in the free sessions and stuff, from flipping people in backflips, to managing a cartwheel to flick flack (still can't do proper tumbling though, 'cause I'm rubbish). Lots of climbing trees, more or less safely, and clambering around in the disused factories, which was really interesting, even if I can't throw knives to save my life. Then, today, doing prep for Spring Bank, with the foundations of the massive 30m bridge and assault course, the prussock tower 10m up (ascenders make it way too easy )

Explorers has been varied, with another bridge in roughly the same place, though unnecessarily taught and only for the hardcore with decent upper body strength, everyone hanging in a tree, and then lots of painting the scout hut with cool symbols and political statements (first time ever that anyone has graffitied "Lib Dems Rule" ), before spending the next day cleaning it all up again, cutting down a tree stump (it took [insert word] ages), and shovelling the ground flat. It is amazing how much better it looks without the old half bricks and broken glass. Then, due to the rubbish weather, a joint meeting with scouts, showing how much better explorers are, climbing ropes, scaffolding one handed, and a sedan bed without the bed bit, or the sedan bit for that matter.

Apart from that: bank stuff (I'm now trusted with a cheque book! ), playing lots and lots of Comptine D'Un Autre; though I still can't play it anywhere near well enough, I think I've done quite well learning it, watching High Fidelity, which is very good (one of the only films that I think it is better than the film), and I've got to go see Coraline soon.