The last month of England

Hey, I'm back ;)
At the beginning of June, I was starting to realize that I had to go soon. Really soon. And it's even sooner now, only 10 day left in fact. After having spent 9 months with Stevo and Lesley in England, a pretty bleak outlook. On the other hand I'm looking forward to going home and seeing all you lot again. But I will miss England, it has left a lasting impression, and it was in fact the best year of my life so far, I would say. I made new friends, acquired a second language to the extent that I dream and think in it, had some great experiences, a lot of fun and grew as a person I believe. It is great and I can't quite believe it's over that soon.
Anyway, at the beginning of June, there were still loads in it for me.
June 1st-4rd, Tuesday-Friday
This week was the sunniest this year, it was more than 20 degrees every day, the sun shone every day all day long, it was just lovely. I did some bits and bobs of revision every day, but not too much and went running a couple of times. There was no Salsa on Wednesday and I started reading another book, "The Lovely Bones", which was weird but good. Not much social interaction going on because everyone else was preparing for next weeks exams, but that was fine by me. I finished the lovely bones on Friday, tanning in the back garden and enjoying the sun. Friday was also Bob's birthday, so John and Celia came round and we had a BBQ to celebrate his birthday.
June 5th, Saturday
To get a bit of a break from the little revision I had been doing and get some energy for the revision I was going to be doing, we decided to go to Woburn. Woburn is a Safari Park not too far away from us, where the animals are not in cages but run around freely (obviously they separate predators from the other animals) and you go round in your car. I took quite a few pictures. There were elephants, giraffes, zebras, lions, bears, wolves, rhinos, camels, parrots, lemurs, wallabys and what have you. It was great and having a camera with a good zoom really paid off that day. As if that hadn't been enough animals for the day, we watched "Finding Nemo" in English, Stevo had never seen it at all and I had never seen it in English. Good fun, I think it's better than the dubbed version.
June 6th, Sunday
About 4 o'clock in the afternoon I entered what I called "revision mode". It was going to be an intensive week and I wanted to be prepared. I revised psychology that day and went to bed early.
Here's the week: Monday - Psychology Unit 1 exam, 1pm-2:30pm, went alright, I was well prepared
Tuesday - English Literature exam, 1pm-3pm, poetry part was very good, Wuthering Heights seemingly, until I later realized that I'd forgotten to mention context. In the morning I was walking around the house, chanting quotes to myself and in the evening, I was preparing for the next day, physics and maths. Physics Unit 1 having gone not to well, I was worried about Unit 2.
Wednesday - Which proved to be alright in the end, I finished with loads of time to spare and answered all the questions, 9am-11am, then went to town for some food with Nick and Marcell and then had maths, C4, in the afternoon, 1pm, 1:30h for the first part and 1h for the second part, so I left school at 3:30. The exam itself was quite easy I found, but other people found it difficult.
Thursday - Psychology Unit 2 exam, 9am-10:30am. In comparison to the past papers, this was an unusual paper in that it had 3 extra essay-style questions, so 4 overall, when they normally have 12, but I was prepared quite well, answered all the questions.
Friday - Maths C3, 9am-10:30am. The penultimate exam, for which I had prepared not as much as the others as it was supposed to be easier than C4. It was, and I did alright I think.
So that was the week. What I did in between the exams? Revision, sleeping, eating, nothing else!
June 12th, Saturday
Even though Lesley asked me whether she was going to find "a dribbling little mess" by the end of the week, to which I replied "yeah, that would be me then", I wasn't really worn out, just relieved that most of the exams were over. 6 exams in 1 week is quite harsh. So Stevo and I went to Salcey forest where they have "the largest freestanding treetop walk in Europe" which takes you up to the tops of the trees and you get a great view. Interestingly, in the little restaurant of the park, they had menus on the insides of the loo-doors. Then we went to Lesley who had been shopping with her Mum during the day and visited Lesley's parents one last time so I could say goodbye and then watched "the football". 1st half still at Lesley's parent's place, then quickly rushed round to Lesley's and watched the second half and afterwards got some Fish and Chips from the local Chippy. I also got a battered (paniert) Mars bar, which is basically a Mars bar (as in the chocolate) in batter and then deep-fried in fat. The portions were so big, I could not physically have finished those fish&chips, even if I hadn't had the mars bar.
June 13th, Sunday
Stevo, Lesley and me went to London to go to the Tower of London and a radio recording at St. Martin in the Field's church. The Tower of London is the place full of beefeaters (and that's NOT the guys with the big furry hats), where they clip the raven's wings so they can't fly away and the empire can't go down, a prison for important prisoners where trials were held, including that of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn who was accused of treason and adultery and beheaded there. He was the guy who found the church of england and made its rules, so he could divorce his first wife, which the pope at the time wouldn't let him. Nice bloke, really. Divorced the 1st wife, had the 2nd one beheaded, 3rd wife died in giving birth, divorced his 4th wife because he found her ugly, and his last wife he would also have had beheaded if he hadn't died beforehand.
Anyway, we saw the crown jewels and the insides of the tower and some reenactors doing the trial and execution of Anne Boleyn. After that we went to St. Martin in the Field's, which is a church in London where many a classical music recording has been made, to see some hymns being recorded for a radio programme. Then we had some readymeals at Daniel's place before going home.
June 14th, Monday
I had a lie-in, did some preparation for my last exam, then watched a movie called "Pay It Forward" which was quite good. Then did some more past papers for "Mechanics 1".
June 15th, Tuesday
M1 9am-10:30am, I had a slow start in that exam, but still managed to finish fairly quickly and had enough time to go over any questions I wasn't sure about. After that I went to see the local Cromwell museum, to which I'd never been before and thought I had to do it. Rather small building, so I was done in half an hour and then joined Shaun, Nathaniel and Elisabeth going to Hinchingbrooke Country Park where they had lunch and we had a nice little chat until about 3 o'clock. In the afternoon I did a treasure hunt which Stevo and Lesley had prepared for Bob's wine maker's club, driving through Northamptonshire, ending up at a pub where I got fish&chips.
June 16th, Wednesday
An epic day out in London with Paddy P and Leah. I got 3 free tickets for the house of commons so I asked Paddy and Leah to come along. We took the train to London at 9, had a full english breakfast, then went to the houses of Parliament and had a tour around which was quite good. I saw the house of Lords and the great hall and everything. After the tour, we decided to queue up for the house of commons, where they were having a debate. It only took 5 minutes of queueing to get in and we saw some politicians (nobody I knew) arguing about different affairs, which was very interesting to see. After that, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe where I bought myself a T-Shirt, then got some lunch from Marks&Spencer's which we had in Green Park before going to the Science Museum and the natural history museum (just for the dinosaurs and the blue whale). Finished there, we went to T.G.I. Friday's (standing for Thank God It's Friday's). They have a thing there called "bottomless glass", which basically means drink as much as you like, the waiters will continually top you up. Leah had some chicken with a salad and Paddy and I both went for a 14oz Burger with bacon, cheese, onion rings, chips and Jack Daniel's sauce. TERRIFIC! But sooo much. I was absolutely stuffed afterwards, but it was well good. Then we got the train back home, continuing the game of wizard we had started on the journey there, and I lost. By miles. Well done Paddy and Leah for ganging up on me :P
June 17th, Thursday
Unfortunately I had to go back to school, there was some sort of assembly where everyone else got told about what was going to happen next year, all quite irrelevant for me, apart from the date when I get my results: Results day is some time in August. Until then, I won't know how I've done in my exams in June although tbh I'm not that worried. In the afternoon, Paddy came round and I taught him Schnapsen, before we then went to a Fun Fair in Brampton where we met Sonia, Leah, Elisabeth and Nathaniel and went on the dodgems (Autodrom). Paddy and me decided, that if the two of us were to get in a dodgy together, we would have so much mass that we would easily be able to dodge anyone away, which turned out to be true: We just stopped and whoever we rammed went a couple of feet backwards. Unfortunately my legs are a bit too long for those small dodgies and I kept hitting my knees whenever I dodged someone. It was good fun.
June 18th, Friday
We started some new stuff at school, for everyone else this is the beginning of Year 13, their final year. They have 5 weeks of school before their summer holidays (6 weeks long). Some interesting stuff there actually, especially in maths. I am going to be SO bored in maths next year. Seriously, I've got my A level in maths, I've done it all. Nevermind. I had my (penultimate) piano lesson, we did some more on Claire de Lune and Take 5 and some scales and jazz, all really interesting stuff. I'll have to find a good piano teacher next year... In the evening, we watched the england-algeria game on telly.
June 19th, Saturday
I didn't get out of my pjs all day and from 2:30 onwards started working on the blog. In the evening, Jeremy, his girlfriend, Sam and Jess came round to celebrate Jeremy's birthday, Stevo and Lesley had gone out, and later in the evening when Stevo and Lesley came home I joined them. It was really good fun, we didn't get to bed until 1:30.
June 20th, Sunday
Which made it difficult to get up, but I managed. I got up at 8:30, got some bacon from the co-op and set everything up for a father's day breakfast for Stevo. Everyone else was pretty hung over from last night, so I had plenty of time and finished off the blog this morning before Stevo got up, then got in the kitchen and made (with a bit of help and advice from Jeremy) some fried bacon, fried eggs, baked beans and toast for everyone. I don't want to praise myself, but it was quite good and I'm beginning to get the hang of fried eggs. Now I'm just doing the last 3 weeks and I'm about to go to Cambridge, where they have a jazz festival and I'm going to see all the boys a last time before I leave.
10 days to go. I'm happy, and sad, I'm looking forward, but will miss.. Oh well, it has been a very good year and I would not miss it for the world.
Yours,
S. P. B.