Daily Mail

50 things Sophie (almost) did by five

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I WAS interested to read that £10,000-a-year Burgess Hill Girls School in West Sussex has drawn up a list of 50 things a girl should have done before she turns five (Mail). My granddaugh­ter Sophie recently celebrated her fifth birthday and I thought she would have done most of the 50 challenges, many of which involve being outside and getting your hands dirty, because we live in the countrysid­e and she is an outgoing girl. She is fortunate to have a mum and dad who encourage her to be active. Even if it is raining, they will put on waterproof­s and go for a walk. I was pleased to be told that Sophie had achieved well over 40 of the challenges with her inseparabl­e seven-year-old sister Ellie. Playing in water is one of her favourite pastimes, especially with all the bad weather we’ve had recently, and she loves dancing in the rain and jumping in puddles. She has gone down a waterslide on holiday, been fishing several times and netted frogspawn, which she kept until they developed into tadpoles, which she then released into a lake. Telling jokes, jumping on her bed and dressing up take place on a daily basis. As it was half-term, Sophie set about trying to reach the target of 50. On the day before her fifth birthday, she had a water balloon fight with her sister before drying off and going inside to make her own birthday cake and some slime followed by a scrapbook of her own drawings. Her 49th challenge was a midnight picnic to celebrate her birthday and enjoy her home-made cake. The only thing she didn’t manage to achieve by the deadline was to hatch a chicken’s egg. No doubt she will do this in the near future and we can look forward to chickens running about and, hopefully, fresh eggs for the breakfast table. Holding a worm holds no worries for her, so perhaps she can feed them to the chicks when they hatch. I wonder what Sophie’s next 50 challenges will be? As my photograph shows, this delightful little daredevil has already done No 51 — crossing a rope bridge!

M. JARVILL, Llandrinio, Powys. High achiever: Sophie (left) has fun tackling a rope bridge

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