For the last three years we have spent Easter week at Potash Barns in Suffolk. It's the perfect retreat from our busy city life, run by a lovely couple who retreated from busy City Life with their three children and now run the smallholding and self-catering cottages instead. The cottages are lovely: beautifully decorated, well-laid out and comfortably furnished. There are logs in abundance for your wood-burning stoves for a small price to keep … [Read more...]
How to play squares
I'm going to teach you how to play squares. It's a really simple game which takes no time at all to learn. It teaches simple tactics and turn taking to children, and is a great way of keeping them occupied in restaurants and doctor's surgeries. All you need is paper and pencil. If you have coloured pens, so much the better. First you need a grid of dots, evenly spaced. To while away the long double Chemistry lessons at school we used … [Read more...]
Things my children have been saying
"I don't think I will be very hungry at pudding time." Dimples, just before she hoovered up two scoops of ice-cream. "The hot is not going away" Dimples, whilst blowing on her sausages to cool them down. "My feet feel very fizzy." LBG, describing pins and needles. "Mamma, what is a dick-head?" Dimples, shortly after the afore-mentioned bad driver caused me to do an emergency stop in the middle of a busy junction on a school-run. Yes, … [Read more...]
Giving your children a #naturalchildhood
Something David Bond said last weekend at a National Trust property in Sussex really struck a chord with me: that our children are free to roam in a much smaller area now than they used to be able to. I immediately thought of my childhood in Cyprus which-in my head at least- is comparable with an upbringing in 1950's England. Outside school hours we were free to roam the local scrub-land- not much grew in the lands around our Army Quarters- on … [Read more...]
Pipecleaner doll in a tin travel toy
We do quite a bit of travelling now that we have discovered Home Exchanges. Naturally this requires the packing of some toys, and toys can take up a fair amount of valuable packing space, so of course I have a board on Pinterest specifically for travel toy ideas. One that caught my eye was this tiny mouse in a tin at Oh Sweet Babies. Now, of course, whilst I appreciate the patience and love that went into the original, I wasn't about to set to … [Read more...]
Toffee Apple Pancakes
This month the Tots100 Center Parcs challenge is so easy you really ought to enter: you could win a family holiday at Center Parcs! All you have to do is make Pancakes!! Once you have your pancake (there are so many recipes on the web I didn't bother teaching you how), you're going to want to put something in it. Obviously there are your classic combinations: lemon and sugar, banana and chocolate, anything-with-squirty-cream, but if you want … [Read more...]
{Home Exchange tips} 7 Home Exchange Packing Essentials
We're off on another Home Exchange for half-term: the first of several that will make up our major holidays this year. This time, we're driving across the Kingdom of Great Britain to get to Ireland. It's a long way to go for weather than, in all likelihood, will be wetter than it is here. But there is so much to see, and experience, that we are all looking forward to it. Home Exchanges are becoming our way of life, and whilst I adore going to … [Read more...]
