The days have gone to:
Mario Party 8
Cluedo
Monopoly

writing a story (first typed story on her laptop) and planning to print it, to do pastel drawings to go with it and to make up a tune on keyboard to go with it too and film the combination! (most of which has not got beyond planning stage but it's a cool creative impulse)

asking what words mean: interrogate, historian, century

using some lovely pastels to make very rich colourful pictures, including one of her 2 best friends (D and E) at Spring Barn, going on the jumping pillow together, from her imagination

Animal Crossing - we finally have DS connectivity sorted out and would love to swap Friend Codes with anyone who is up for it, please...

watching The Simpsons, Star Trek TNG (gives rise to many interesting conversations about everything from history to racism) and Animalia

Sims 3 - F made a household that featured 3 of her favourite adults and 5 children: D and S and their dad, A; E and M and baby D and their mum and mummy, C andK; plus herself, F. Made me laugh - one of the adults actually looked quite like the real person. She had chosen hair, face shape, etc. all quite accurately.

Other conversations about ammonites (looked at some on Internet), percentages, how visions of the future change over time.

F continues to be rather poetic in her turns of phrase. She recently said about a time that she had cried: 'my tears flowed hot as blood'.

Had a lovely time at her friend E's birthday party last weekend, up at local farm park - 14 children. They did meeting the (smaller) animals - a baby rabbit, baby guinea pig, a chicken, a tortoise and an adult guinea pig. And they did lots of bouncing on the jumping pillow and playing on the straw bales. Nice to see people from MMs and chat. F had a crisis on the go-karts which meant I got my ankles bashed by some kartists whilst trying to help

Monday we had one of our coffee shop and pizza out type days, which was lovely.

F went up to E's on Wednesday and had a very good time there, staying on for tea and a play after. I had a good 3 hours to myself and did some chores and then had a lovely long uninterruptible bath. Bliss! Finally got paid too, after a long wait due to French banks taking time off for Bastille Day. Have been on a bit of a spending spree since then, buying nice bath stuff, a couple of tops and various treats and loads of fruit.
Can anyone recommend a good children's encyclopedia - something good for 8-yr olds, not so huge it's daunting but with good coverage of a lot of subjects?