Joseph Kennedy
Half Term Holiday Diary
Autumn 2009
Tuesday
5.00am We went to Ireland today! We were late! I got up and got dressed as quickly as possible.
5.25am Dad, Orla and I left for Bristol Airport in our car. Dad drove very quickly.
6.20am We arrived at the airport car park. We had to run to the check in desk in the airport. Luckily we got there on time! We had to wait for a while to get on the plane to Belfast. It was very exciting! As the plane rose into the sky the lights of the cities and towns got smaller and smaller.
8.30am Finally we arrived at Belfast Airport. The flight seemed to last a long time. We went to a conveyor belt to collect our suitcases. Then we got a taxi to Jenna's house. Jenna is one of my older sisters. She is married to Colin. They live with Elisha, age 4, my niece and Matthew, age 1 month, my nephew. Matthew was very ill and nearly died last week. When we got to Jenna's house, I was able to see Matthew for the first time. He was very small.
Matthew 10 days ago
Matthew this week! 
9.30am We all had breakfast. I was starving!
11.30am We got a train like this one to Belfast museum.
Belfast museum is a lot bigger than Bristol's and the museums in our area are smaller than any of the rooms in Belfast museum!
Here are some of the things I found most interesting -
Tyrannosaurus Rex skull
The longest antlers in the world
Stuffed tiger
Giant fish
A large crystal 
Stuffed wolf
Brown bear
Egyptian mummy (age 3000 years +)
The most interesting rooms were the café and -
Interactive craft room
Interactive history room
We had lunch in the café. We played coloured in and made pictures with wool and paper shapes in the interactive craft room. We dressed up in old clothes and played with old-fashioned toys, jigsaws and puzzles in the interactive history room.
7.00pm We went back to Jenna's house and had our dinner. We had spaghetti Bolonese. We had a busy day and I got very tired. Soon afterwards I went to bed.
9.30pm I was fast asleep!
Wednesday
7.00am Elisha and Orla woke everybody up!
8.00am I got breakfast. After that Colin and I played the X-box.
11.00am We went to the Ulster Folk Park at Cultra in the train. It is a giant outdoor museum with lots of old buildings. In the old buildings were old toys, furniture, clothes, machines and fires.
We saw an old school. There were no books or pencils, just slates for children to write on with chalk. The seats were like church pews. I pretended to be the teacher.
There was an old post office with a small sorting office. There were feathers on the desk which you write with. They are called quills.
We saw an old sweet shop with real sweets in jars that we were allowed to eat but you had to buy them.
There was a café with lots of food and drinks were we had our lunch.
I saw how a wall was made in the olden days. First you make a frame out of wood. Next you twist some straw to make rope and attach it to the wood. Finally you put the clay onto the rope to make it smooth.
I sat on a very old tractor which has metal tyres.
We went into an old-fashioned clothes shop. At the back of the clothes shop was a lady making cloth on a machine called a loom.
There were lots of other buildings to explore. The weirdest thing I saw was a toilet with a piece of wood with a hole in it for the seat. There was no water to wash anything away! You had to go outside to go to the toilet and there was no light in it or any heating. Not even any toilet roll!
6.00pm We went back to Jenna's house and got our dinner. Then I played with the X-box again until it was time to go to bed.
9.30pm Bed time.
Thursday
7.00am Orla and Elisha woke me up again!
10.00am Dad took Orla and me shopping in a huge shopping centre. We had our lunch there too.
I got two shirts, two hoodies, a football dressing-gown and football socks in a shop called Dunnes Stores.
This shop is bigger than Tesco's!
1.00pm We went to Lisburn swimming pool.
It looked a bit like the swimming pool at Butlin's holiday park in Minehead but it's better. It had three jacuzzis, lots of water slides, a paddling pool and a large pool. There was a “lazy river”which is water flowing in a circle at the outside of the pool. I could swim in it without doing much.
4.00pm It was time to go home again. I was sad. We got a taxi to Belfast Airport where we got a plane to Bristol Airport. Then we drove home. We had tea on the way home.
9.30pm We were home. I showed my Mum my new clothes. I was very tired so I went to bed.
Photographs of the train and Belfast Museum exhibits taken by Joseph Kennedy
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