Big News :D

Hi everyone, I'm home.

I'm back from my amazing trip to Ireland and bearing some fantastic news.

To start with I'll tell you about my trip. I had a brilliant trip to Ireland, such a good time.

The plane journey was amazing, it was nothing like I imagined, so smooth and enjoyable, I couldn't even tell when we left the ground! Working our way through all the checks and security in the airport was quite an experience, I couldn't have managed without others who had done it before. I didn't feel as nervous whilst sat at the airport as I believed I would, and boarding the plane I felt excited more than anxious.

Up in the sky, the view was fabulous. I've seen pictures that people have taken out of the window of planes before, but it's not the same as when you are up there yourself.

The campsite was lovely, we were the only group on the entire site. We were a group of 8, so we had two in a tent.

On the first night, after setting up camp, we did archery. It was great fun, it's so long since I've done archery.

In the right hand corner of the camp image above you can see a metal structure. This was 'The Cube'. As it was a girl guiding site there were many activities on site that we took part in, including 'The Cube' high rope course and crate stacking. Here's us just about to start crate stacking.

After crate stacking, we went on to the high ropes course. This is me after conquering the ropes and stood rather high on a plinth.

The following day we went on a 'Paddywagon' tour around the main attractions in Northern Ireland. Our first stop was the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge which connects the land to an Island and used to be used by fishermen. This is the view down as you cross the bridge.
From the bridge we moved around the coast to the Giant's Causeway. For those of you who haven't been, it's well worth a visit, it's a beautiful place.

The final destination on our trip was Londonderry (Derry) where we were taken around some of the historic areas and shown some of the murals. This was my favourite, painted on the end of a terrace block, the detail and painting skill was incredible.

On the Tuesday we walked a 7 mile walk along the coast to Bangor, a seaside town. It was a really lovely walk, looking across the bay the whole walk and seeing all the green, rugged scenery.

That afternoon we had another activity on site, the 'Slippery Slide', which consisted of a giant piece of tarpaulin with water and washing up liquid on it!! It was good fun, some of us went faster than others, but I was happy with the speed that I went. We were all giggling away as we went sailing down and skidded off a few times onto the grass at the bottom.
As you can see, we all got soaked!

We had to get up really early on the Wednesday, pack up the site and headed off with our incredibly heavy bags (mine weighed 15.4kg on the return journey)! We did a Open bus site-seeing tour of Belfast, then enjoyed a meal in a lovely pub and some free shopping time. The flight home was just as fine as the outward journey, although returning home through thick cloud and good old English rain wasn't as pleasant.

One thing that did make the return journey special was the knowledge that I would return home to my GCSE results. I was devastated to find out that they had decided to move the GCSE results day this year, the one year that I was on holiday. It would have been brilliant to be there on the day, although our own mini results day was nearly as good. 3 of us went on the Ireland trip that were due to receive our results, so we agreed to have them bought to us at the airport and have a mini results day.

I am extremely proud to tell you my results. I received 8 A*'s, 5 A's and a C. All of my hard work payed off and I received grades better than my highest dreams. The C was in PE, which, if you can remember my write up following my exam, I don't care a bit about. I am also incredibly proud to tell you that one of my A*'s was for Art. Our school has never had an A* in art before as it requires 97% to achieve it. I have asked a few other fellow art students and believe it is me and only one other who achieved it in my year group, making us the first two to ever get an A* in the history of the school!!! When I saw the A* in art I nearly cried, it was the one that touched me the most. I plan to meet up with friends over the weekend as I haven't yet seen them or heard most of their results.

Bye for now,

Hannah xx :D