If there's one thing that children want to do more than anything else, it is to do whatever their parents are doing. Any parent who has ever tried to use a laptop whilst a toddler is in the room will know that they will very quickly run over and start trying to press buttons - normally whilst you're in the middle of something rather important! At just 18 months old Little Miss C could already get past the screen lock on my iPhone and before than she managed to launch various applications on Granny's computer too. We were beginning to think that it was time to get her some ... read more
Archives for January 2012
The power of a child’s imagination
The more I watch Little Miss C play the more amazed I am at the way in which she uses toys in different ways to how the original designers intended. One of her favourite Christmas presents this year was a Bigjigs train set. She loves playing with it and in particular letting the trains run down the far side of the bridge that is part of the set. Having seen how good it was letting trains go down the "hill" she decided to take things a step further. Her VTech Toot Toot Drivers Garage has a spiral ramp so LMC decided to combine the two - cue trains running up ... read more
Homemade playdough
The weather here has been awful since the new year and after all the excitement of Christmas and New Year I've had my work cut out keeping LMC entertained. A bit of pre-planning meant that today I was able to do something with her that in my opinion falls into the "fantastic mummy" category - home made playdough! I found several recipes online, but a nanny friend told me to look for the ones that involved heating the ingredients as these were the ones that she had found most successful. With that piece of information I decided to try this recipe from the ... read more
Dead Tomorrow – Peter James
Organ donation is one of those subjects that many of us don't talk about. To donate most organs you need to be dead and talking about what happens to you once you've died isn't something that many people like to bring up over Sunday lunch. Unless a family member or friend has needed an organ transplant then it's quite possible that you may not have put much thought into the subject at all. Despite being a registered organ donor I have been lucky enough not to have anyone close to me needing an organ donation and I fell into that category of not really thinking about the people ... read more
The National Trust respond
Following on from my post on Monday I have to give full marks to the National Trust for the speed with which they have responded to me. Not long after 9am on the Tuesday morning I had received an email holding response from the Wimpole Estate and that morning both the Estate and the National Trust centrally had also responded to me on Twitter. At just 2pm there was a full response from the General Manager at the Wimpole Estate which I include below. Here at Wimpole Estate we take our position of sustainability very seriously; whether this is the continual conservation work we do in both the ... read more
Another stripy hat
There's a new baby in St Albans (local bloggers Claire and Alex's third child, an adorable little boy, to be exact) and as everyone knows every new baby deserves something handknitted when they were born and I was delighted to oblige here. The pattern is the same Sublime one that I followed for the first hat that I made for LMC nearly two years ago. This time I was just using up some ball ends from my stash - possibly James C Brett's pure merino - and at first I wasn't too sure about the colours, but once the stripes came together they really ... read more
Let down by plastic
We made the most of the last day of Mr C's Chrsitmas holidays today to take Little Miss C along to Home Farm at the National Trust's Wimpole Estate. It is somewhere that we have visited several times before and LMC loved all the animals that she visited on the farm. On this visit she was also old enough (and mobile enough) to make the most of the ride on tractors and also all the playground facilities. For her it was a perfect day out. We enjoyed the farm visit as much as she did, but there was unfortunately one bit of our visit that left us feeling let down. We chose to eat lunch at ... read more
seven days
A weekly photograph capturing one of the magic moments of the last seven days. ... read more
Happy 2012!
Big Ben has done its bonging, the fireworks have gone bang and the champagne has been drunk. 2012 is here and there's no going back. Whilst I don't go in for new year's resolutions in a big way, one thing I want to do this year is try to sort this blog out once and for all and take things up a level. I failed spectacularly in my Crafty Advent plans so I'm slightly hesitant to reveal too many plans for fear of failing again. I've some ideas for regular features and aim to ensure that blogging never becomes a chore. This might work, or it might not, but I'm going to ... read more