A bit of a mad week means that I'm a bit behind where I want to be on book reviews right now. Children sleeping a bit better (hope I've not just jinxed that!) and a need to shut my brain off from thinking about other stuff before going to sleep means that I'm actually reading more that I have done in ages. Back for my birthday I was lucky enough to be given some National Trust gift vouchers and as I always love the selection of books they have in their gift shops that's exactly what I headed towards. I picked up a copy of Shiny Pennies And Grubby Pinafores to go ... read more
A fishy update…
It's just over a month now since I wrote about setting up our new aquarium from Swell, so I thought it about time to let you know how we are getting on and tell the tale of finally getting some aquatic residents in our tank. Mr C has become the main fish keeper in the house (whilst I'm just in charge of feeding them!) so I'll let him do the story-telling this time... We took a sample of water (in a baby food jar) with us to our local trusted fish shop, where they tested it for free and declared it fit for fishy habitation. Water testing is important, and becomes more so once ... read more
Little Miss C’s interpretation of the Kid’s Capture the Colour Competition
Little Miss C has always enjoyed having a go at taking photographs with our camera or phone. Nearly a year ago I even published on here some of the photos she took whilst in the doctor's waiting room. Letting a three year old have free run with a camera is still something slightly scary though, especially when she's insisting on taking hold of your phone to take a photo of the ducks at the park - especially as she seems to insist on holding the phone out over the water to get a better picture. I was therefore delighted when I heard about the TravelSupermarket.com Kid's Capture the ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: British Wild Animals
I regularly talk to people about my vintage Ladybird collection and one subject that seems to come up time and time again are the natural history books that they used to publish. Loads of people seem to remember not only the Natural History series (number 536) but also the later Conservation series (number 727). Strangely I don't seem to have written about many of there here on Ladybird Tuesday yet, but I hope to rectrify that by this week looking at British Wild Animals from series 536. Originally published in 1958 British Wild Animals was written by George Cansdale and the ... read more
One Thousand
I'm not one for marking blog anniversaries in any big way, but when I noticed via my blog dashboard earlier this week that I'd published by 1000th post here on Being Mrs C it did make me stop and think. A huge amount has happened in my life since I started this blog over five years ago, and I find it really interesting when I look back at some of my earlier posts to see what I was doing then, and what was making me smile back then. Over that time I've stopped working and devoted my time to looking after our family, but the economic situation here has also changed a huge amount ... read more
Dragon Loves Penguin – Debi Gliori
When I first looked at the copy of Dragon Loves Penguin that Bloomsbury had sent me both Little Miss C and I were completely drawn in by the adorable dragon on the cover, peering at something just coming out of an egg. But just what was it that dragon was nurturing, as it didn't exactly look like a baby dragon? The story is set up so that a little penguin called Bib asks his mummy for a bedtime story about dragons and his mummy obliges. When the dragons arrived in the penguins' home in the antarctic and started laying their eggs there one dragon sadly found herself with no ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Learnabout… Simple Electronics
Be warned - there's a full on geek alert for this week's Ladybird Tuesday. I have a degree in Electronic Engineering and my choice for this week is Simple Electronics from the Learnabout series (634). Having first been published in 1979 things in the world of electronic have moved on somewhat since then, but as the introduction to the book says, "some quite simple electronic circuits" are actually at the basis of many of the more complicated electronic devices that surround us. The only problem I have with this particular Ladybird book is the use of the word ... read more
The School – Dick Bruna
There are some children's book authors and illustrators whose style you instantly recognise and has become completely iconic - and Dick Bruna is one such person. Most famous for his Miffy books, he has written a staggering 124 titles in total and it all started 60 years ago with The Apple . To mark this anniversary Tate have republished The Apple, along with two other titles: The School, which has been out of print until 1968, and a new title On My Scooter, which I am sure will appeal to all the children like Little Miss C that I see going round on scooters. We were sent a copy of ... read more
Spider Sandwiches – Claire Freedman and Sue Hendra
There are some big benefits to blogging and one has to be the lovely parcel of children's books for us to review that arrived from Bloomsbury Children's Books last week. Four books which were all very different, but all equally lovely, and each deserves its own separate review here on the blog. I've decided to start with Spider Sandwiches which has to be the most fantastically bonkers book of the lot! Illustrated by Sue Hendra, who also was responsible for Doug the bug that went Boing which we reviewed here last week, the artwork in Spider Sandwiches is ... read more
Review : Post-it Super Sticky Notes
Did you know that Post-it notes were pretty much invented by accident? Someone working at 3M was trying to come up with a super-strong adhesive and instead invented a reusable, pressure -sensitive one instead. Not knowing what to do with his new invention, but sure that it did have a purpose, he just made sure he told lots of people in the company about it until one of them came up with the idea of using it to hold a piece of paper inside his book to mark the page, and the rest, as they say, is history. Nowadays Post-it notes are everywhere. I always have a stack on the kitchen counter next ... read more