A postcard from Rui

Thursday,21st october 2010

On my best summer holidays I went to Paris. On the 24th July I arrived at the airport. I went to the hotel with my grandmother. My room was room 306. At ten o'clock I went to sleep because the next day I was going to Disneyland. It was great. On the 26th July I visited the Eiffel Tower. It is so big! I also visited the Louvre Museum. I went to the famous restaurant "Hippopotamus". In the evening me and my grandma visited Notre Dame. At ten o'clock we went to the hotel and on the 27th July we came back home.
I liked my holidays because the weather was great and I loved Disneyland. I hated travelling by plane.
With love

P.S.- send me a post card back.

Rui Neves, 801

The Greed of an Ant

Once upon a time, in a far far away land, where the ants ruled the world, and no other animal dared enter their kingdom, a story of desperation and catastrophe took place.
The ruling king, Fred, wanted it all, he wanted to be a god. So against all the warnings of the court’s counsellors, he began the construction of a massive tower, which would take him to the sky.
The construction took seconds, minutes, hours even days, it even took the lives of their most valuable allies, the Trees, but finally, after two days the tower was ready.
In the tower’s inauguration day, all the ants of all the kingdoms, of all the lands were there to witness the ascension of the king to the Olympus. But suddenly a catastrophe took place, the skies started to turn grey and a stormy wind blew upon them.
Fred assumed that this was the critical point in which he would be transformed into a god, the other ants, however, knew better, they knew that the structure of the tower was compromised by all those raging winds.
Suddenly a noise was heard in the four corners of the world, and the tower began to fall. Up there the king realised that it was the death of the trees that provoked this, for it were the trees that protected the kingdom from the deadly winds above.
The colossal construction fell upon the kingdom, killing all the ants. Incredibly King Fred had a parachute so he was able to save himself.
As he was floating, the King promised that he would dedicate the rest of his life to the protection of Mother Nature, and never harm other animals’ life.
The wind dragged him to the lakes, where he spent the rest of his life doing humanitarian missions with other surviving ants.

Ana David, Catarina Aboim, José Paulo; Tiago Rocha - 1103

Pix and Posy Love Story

Once upon a time there was an iceberg named Pix,
During her youth time she was very large
One of the largest in the North Pole
But she melted away and now she’s just a little iceberg.
The evil sun separated her from her friends
And now she’s wandering in the long, lonely and cold ocean.
She roamed with no direction trying to run away from the sun
But he was always there, there was no escape.
Her life was ending. Pix knew she had to do something.
Pix had the size of a little house when she saw her last chance to survive.
A majestic iceberg approached. He introduced himself as Posy.
Posy was the biggest piece of ice she had ever seen.
Her only chance to live was to stay side by side with him.
They spent a lot of time together and became real friends.
When they were together their heart stopped; they couldn’t talk like normal icebergs
Their stomach felt weird. And just like that they were in love.
Their love was bigger than anything, so they decided to merge together.
Posy not only saved Pix’s life but he also added a new meaning to her life
They stayed together forever and lived happily ever after.

Rui, Pedro Henrique, José Carlos, Paulo - 1101

My best summer holidays

My best summer holidays were four years ago when I went to China with my parents and my brothers.

We travelled by plane. It took us seventeen hours get there but I spent the whole time sleeping.

I was there for two months. The weather was sunny and warm. I visited my grandparents. I also went to Shanghai. It is a very big city. There were too many skyscrapers and lots of people. I loved Shanghai. It was great.

I want to go to China again.

Joana Yang,801

Did you know that...

The World Savings Day was established on October 31st 1924 during the 1st International Savings Bank Congress (World Society of Savings Banks) in Milano, Italy. The Italian Professor Ravizza declared this day the "International Saving Day" on the last day of the congress.
Representatives of 29 countries wanted to bring to mind the thought of saving to the worldwide public and its relevance to the economy and the individual. The World Savings Day is usually held on October 31st except in countries where this day is a public holiday, since the idea is for the banks to be open, so that the people are able to transfer their savings into their account.

Ghoul-Graveyard Cake

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE CAKE:• 250ml milk
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 225g plain flour
• 50g cocoa
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teapoon bicarbonate of soda
• 200g caster sugar
• 110g butter or soft margarine
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

FOR THE ICING :• 300g icing sugar
• 60g butter
• 2 tablespoons cocoa
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• 60ml milk
• 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon black colour paste black sugar sprinkles
• Hallowe'en-themes jelly lollies, at least 1 per child

METHOD

Serves 12 zombies

by Nigella Lawson

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/170C. Grease and line a 23cm springform tin. Mix the milk and vinegar together and set aside.
2. Make sure all your remaining ingredients are at room temperature if you can, but since no one's going to be overly worried about the cake, you shouldn't be either. If the ingredients are cold, the worst that can happen is that the cake will be heavy. But you do need soft butter (or the cake won't mix), so substitute marge if that's not a goer. Put everything for the cake, except the vinegary milk, into a food processor and blitz to mix. Remove the lid, scrape down with a rubber spatula and then put the lid back on and with the motor running, add the vinegary milk.
3. Scrape, spoon or pour the brown batter into the tin and spread to fill it evenly, baking it for 40-45 minutes until it is well risen and springy to the touch.
4. Remove the cooked cake, in its tin, to a rack and leave to cool for about ten minutes, then spring open the tin and let the cake get completely cold.
5. To make the icing, first sieve the icing sugar. Boring, but it's got to be done. Melt the butter in a saucepan and when it's bubbling add the cocoa. Let it dissolve into the butter, stirring with a little hand whisk, then add the syrup, milk, vanilla and colour paste. Stir or whisk well and let it bubble for a few minutes and then take the pan off the heat and whisk in the icing sugar.
6. Put the pan back on the heat and whisk again to help the sugar dissolve and the colouring disperse, then take it off the heat to let it thicken to the right consistency - thick enough to coat, but thin enough to trickle down to cover the sides too - as it cools slightly (but only slightly: it thickens fast). Put the cake on torn-off pieces of baking parchment to form an outline of a square to catch the excess icing. Place the cake just on top of the torn pieces of parchment so you can pull them away once the icing has stopped dripping. Hold the pan of icing over the centre of the cake and pour over it so that the top is covered and the icing has dripped over and down the sides. You will not believe the incredible blackness of this. You'd have to pay me to eat it (good though it tastes) but my children, and all the children I've made it for, can't get enough. You can imagine what their mouths look like afterwards.
7. Working quickly, throw over the black sugar sprinkles to cover the top and sides of the cake before the icing dries.
8. Trim the lolly sticks, so that you have a stem of about 3-4cm to stick into the cake, and then plunge the sticks of the foreshortened lollies into the cake so that the ghoulish faces leer out from their black-frosted graveyard.
9. To be honest, this cakes serves as many children as you can stick lollies in for, if that makes sense. You could certainly find room for 12.

Vlad, my name is Vlad

Hello! I'm Vlad.

My full name is Vlad Alucard. I live in London but I was born in Transylvania.

I'm quite young, I'm four hundred years old.

I'm tall and elegant. I've got light straight short brown hair, and green eyes. I've also got two beautiful white fangs.

I love travelling at night. I don't like travelling by day. I'm allergic to sunlight.

I love wandering in graveyards. I also like reading and writing but my favourite hobby is biting people's neck...

I've got a bat pet. Its name is Frank, Frank Einstein.

My favourite holiday is Halloween...

See you soon!

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Time to celebrate

Halloween, celebrated each year on October 31, is a mix of ancient Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions that blended together over time to create the holiday we know today. Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity and life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. Halloween has long been thought of as a day when the dead can return to the earth, and ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off these roaming ghosts. The Celtic holiday of Samhain, the Catholic Hallowmas period of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day and the Roman festival of Feralia all influenced the modern holiday of Halloween. In the 19th century, Halloween began to lose its religious connotation, becoming a more secular community-based children's holiday. Although the superstitions and beliefs surrounding Halloween may have evolved over the years, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people can still look forward to parades, costumes and sweet treats to usher in the winter season.

History Channel

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