Oh my - there are some varied Ladybird books joining my collection right now. I have to admit that there are some that I am more fond of than others, but it's still fascinating to see how my collection is growing, and what is available when in local charity shops. This week on Ladybird Tuesday I'm looking at Robin Hood Outlawed. Now, these Robin Hood books were part of series 740, called Classics, and were a sub-series of 4 titles which came under the Robin Hood Adventures banner. Whilst this book has a copyright date in it of 1978, I think this is actually a later version, possibly ... read more
Archives for September 2014
Summer 2014: Day 19 – Speech and Language Therapy
I did warn you that our summer got a bit more boring once we were back from Cornwall and day 19 was a fine example of that. Mr C returned to work after a week off and I headed out with the kids to a local drop in Speech and Language Therapy session. Today was the day that I needed to tackle one of the first of the contradictions that came out on the first day of the summer, when I met with Master C's nursery to discuss the problems we're having. They felt that there may be a need for him to have some speech and language therapy, something which really surprised me. Master C's language is, I ... read more
Review: Ben and Holly Magical Playground Playsets
Little Miss C loves watching Ben and Holly on TV and since buying a magazine with free Ben and Holly toys on a while back has regularly been acting out Ben and Holly stories. When I received an email about the new Ben and Holly Magical Playground Playsets that were being released I just knew that she'd love to help me review them. There are three Magical Playground Playsets, a slide, a roundabout and a swing, and we were sent the roundabout and swing ones to review. Each playset comes with a Holly figure, which appears to be fine, but LMC's first questions was "Where's Ben?" When I ... read more
Blackberry Muffins
Blackberries seemed to come really early here this year - back before the schools broke up for summer - so I've actually been sitting on this recipe for a while. One day after school the kids and I went foraging on the local heath and came home with a large bag full of blackberries. Neither of the kids are huge fans of crumble which is what I like to make most with blackberries - combining them with apples from our apple tree - so I went in search of a cake recipe or similar and actually failed to find anything that wasn't too complicated. I pulled together the following from several ... read more
Master C’s new bedroom
Since Master C was born he's had our tiny box room as his bedroom. Whilst it was plenty big enough for his cot-bed, a chest of drawers and a chair to sit and give him his milk and stories in, it certainly wasn't big enough for him to play in it properly. Now that he's nearly two he's at that age where he wants to play with his toys more and to have some space to himself. He got into a bit of a habit of just charging into his sister's room and playing in there instead which was starting to cause a few issues between the two of them. Mr C and I therefore decided that it was time for us to ... read more
The New Small Person – Lauren Child
As a family who loves books it seemed natural that when I was pregnant with Master C we introduced Little Miss C to a selection of books all about there being a new baby in the family. By the time Master C was born she was pretty comfortable with the idea of a baby and had a good idea of what was going to happen with the new tiny baby. But, as we all know, babies grow up. They learn to crawl and move around. They become toddler. Suddenly the older sibling's possessions aren't safe any more and their younger brother or sister just wants to join in with everything they're doing. For us this ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 18 – Back home
After a week of days out and lots and lots of excitement it's no surprise that returning home was a bit of a shock to the system. It rained. Lots. There was loads of laundry to do. Literally. And the kids claimed to be bored. Proof it was needed that school holidays aren't just a long series of blissful days in the sunshine. Mr C wanted to crack on with decorating Master C's new bedroom, so I headed into central St Albans with the kids and took them to Waterstones where staff were doing a Julia Donaldson story time. Little Miss C enjoyed it, but after a week of running around outdoors ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 17 – Castle Drogo and the journey home
After our journey down to Cornwall we were pretty sure that the journey back wasn't going to be fast, but I don't think we realised just how long it was going to take. We said our sad farewell to Fiona and everyone else at Coombe Mill and headed east with an aim of stopping off at the National Trust's Castle Drogo. We'd seen signs for the castle on our journey down, but had run out of time then to be able to visit. Now, the thing that's slightly unique about Castle Drogo at the moment is the fact that they're in the middle of a huge piece of conservation work there whilst staying ... read more
The Boxtrolls – review by Mr C and Little Miss C
After a rather sleepless night with Master C on Saturday night Mr C and I decided that he would instead take Little Miss C into London on Sunday morning to see an advance screening of The Boxtrolls - the new animated family title from Universal instead of me. They don't often get to go somewhere just the two of them so it was a great opportunity for some quality father-daughter time. The Boxtrolls is the story of a group of box wearing trolls (much as the film's title suggests) who all live under the town of Cheesebridge. They bring up an orphaned human boy called Eggs (named after the ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Sunstart Reading Scheme – On the Beach
Do you know what one of my smartest moves ever was in collecting Ladybird books? Realising that Danny from Clouds in my Coffee goes to loads of jumble sales and the like and that he's fab at seeking out Ladybird books! When I heard he was off to a car boot sale on Sunday I cheekily reminded him to keep a look out for me and I was therefore somewhat delighted when he sent me this picture asking if there was anything I could see that I wanted. At just 30p each I'm delighted to say that several came home to me and even more delighted that I took the effort to zoom in and notice one ... read more