Junior Blogger

It seems I have written acres of material about my kids since I started - enough to fill two books and more. It hasn't escaped Ollie's notice and he has begun to take an interest in what I am doing. So much so, it has inspired him to start writing his own diary of what he did on holiday.

It's his birthday soon - he will be 6 at the end of August and I am toying with ideas for what to get him. He has already grown out of the leappad and I am well aware of the existence of tablets designed specifically for children such as the Kurio one. How young is too young to access the internet, have an email address or write a blog? In my opinion, as long as it is safe and filtered, it is never too early to start. With the speed that technology is developing, I believe IT skills to be every bit as important as the classic "3 R's". Anyone not tech savvy in the next generation may as well be illiterate.

So I am now handing over my blog to Ollie, with pictures of the first 3 pages of his hand-written blog. Note that this is entirely his own work and please bear in mind that he is only a 5 year old so you'll need to forgive some of the spelling and the fact that nearly every sentence begins with the word "And". Having said that, there is not that much in the way of errors, only on a few longer words such as "restraunt". Since he has written it in pencil it is quite hard to read from the pictures, so I will translate underneath, and correct the spelling where I need to:


That's the car going on holiday
 Monday 5th August.

My daddy took me on holiday and we went to Butlins and when we got there my mummy and daddy were packing our toys. And then we went to the restaurant. And in the evening the sun was shining. But when we got to Butlins it was raining. And then we went to the fair. And we went on lots of rides. And then we went to bed.
The ball rolling towards the pins
 Tuesday 6th. I woke up and I got dressed. And then we went bowling and I won. And we went back to the hotel and we had lots of fun. And then I went in the play area and I went up to the top and I went down the swirly slide. And then I went and had my tea. And then my family took me on lots of rides at the fair and then I went to bed.


The waterfalls in Splash Waterworld
Wednesday 7th. I got up and I was getting dressed. And I went to have my breakfast. And after that we went to the swimming pool and I went under the big water falls and I had great fun. And then it was time to get out of the pool. And then I went under a shower. And then I went to have my tea. Then I went on the fair. Then I went to bed.

So that's the story so far according to Ollie. I am very proud of my little mini-blogger, who knows, he may well have his own soon! Hope you enjoyed that.

If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.

Jason xx

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Return of the long lost Kindle ratings!

 On Monday evening I noticed something odd happening with the rating count of my Time Bubble book on Amazon. This book has been out for nine years, selling steadily, and accruing reviews along the way. Up until about two or three years ago, people had to leave a written review in order for their ratings to be included in the total, but that has now changed. Now, if someone rates a book they have bought without leaving a review, that's included too. They could leave a rating formerly, but the only place it showed up was on Goodreads, a sister site. So accumulating reviews was a long and slow process. It is estimated that only about 1% of people who purchase leave a review, so it took a long old time for The Time Bubble to reach the milestone of 100 reviews. In recent years, since they started including the ratings, it climbed more quickly but it was only new ratings. The historical ratings seemed lost forever in the mists of time, like those long sought-after missing black-and-white
Read more

Maba

I and countless other people have been saying for years that Bicester needs a proper English restaurant serving good English food. Now there is nothing wrong with the proliferation of Indian, Chinese, etc takeaways and restaurants - most people enjoy those things, but variety is good, and basically there has been nowhere in this town where you can go out and enjoy a decent English meal. And don't even get me started on the Hungry Horse, you may as well, as Basil Fawlty once memorably said "Put out a huge tray of baked beans and garnish it with a few dead dogs". So Maba opens - on the corner of my street. What could be better? Impressive looking menu, nice concept. Let's give it a try. So having returned from Legoland on Wednesday, a quick shower and shave later and in we go for our meal - the four of us, that's Duncan, Claire, Lynda and myself. Nice little cocktail menu to peruse and also a wine list as we waited for our table, booked for 8pm. They were extrem
Read more

The next Time Bubble book

The single most important aspect of starting a new Time Bubble book is coming up with a fresh, innovative concept that has not been explored before, either by myself or anyone else. While it may be easy and tempting to churn out endless variations on the same theme, like Enid Blyton's Famous Five series, I'm not interested in taking that route. My goal is to make each Time Bubble book as exhilarating and novel as the first, even if it means waiting for the perfect idea to strike me. This waiting game means that I typically take around a year between books, as I'm committed to delivering one exceptional idea per year. While I've explored numerous ideas in the past, only a few have made it to completion, while others have been incorporated as parts of other works or have been put on hold for future consideration. Some of the alternate universes that Josh and Lauren visit in my books have been born from these unused ideas, and while others remain dormant for now, they may
Read more