Verona Strauss.comjust because life is fun! …

Wearing my kick boxing uniform with my white belt

I’ve been going kickboxing for a couple of months now and I love it! We start by running around and playing bulldogs then we do all sorts of things like self defence and playing games.

Last weekend I earned my white belt for martial arts!

I do Kenjitsu, Aiki-jitsu, karate, self defence and kick boxing and had to spend an hour and a half showing all that I had learned over the weekend.

There are 12 areas for grading and I got excellent for 4 of them: stamina, fitness, mental attitude and student code.

I’ve now been bought my special uniform. I think I look like a boy, but Mummy says I look great.

with my friends from America

We had some friends visit us all the way from America! They met Mummy when she did an interview for their TV show and they came to visit. They spent 10 days here before going to Israel where the Daddy comes from. He told us all about their water shortages in Israel and how they cope with them and still manage to grow all sorts of lovely tropical fruit.

They loved Sunrise the bunny and liked to see how we lived in England. And they all liked to drink English tea and eat Mummy’s shortbread biscuits. They said we could go to Michigan any time to see them and we didn’t have to ring first!

A bee enjoying some red clover

I went on a wild flower hunt. Unfortunately the famer behind us sprayed his field and when we got in there all the flowers had died.

I was very sad about it - all the pretty buttercups turned their heads to the ground and started to go brown and we missed out on some lovely flowers.

So we went to Flaxley where a man called Chris has bought lots of land and turned it all back into meadows.

Here’s what we saw:

• Buttercups
• Yellow Rattle - this actually rattles if you hold it up to your ear and shake it! And it helps to keep the grass down
• Clover - the bees love this
• Plantain, which was almost over
• Bird’s foot trefoil and lesser Bird’s foot trefoil
• Sorrel
• Self heal - this is wonderful for the skin and can be used for mouth ulcers or sore throats
• Daisy and ox eye daisy - Ox eye daisy is one of my favourites; I love their big, happy faces
• Corky-fruited water dropwort - this is rare and I was very lucky to see it
• Silver leaf
• Hawksbit
• Lesser Stitchwort
• Common Spotted orchid

So we saw lots of pretty flowers in the end. Chris got a net, swept along the flowers and there were loads and loads of insects, so he was very happy that all these insects had found his meadow and was enjoying it!