Wacky women on tour!

One of the greatest things to have happened to me over the past couple of years of not working, is the friendships I have; some new friends, some old friends, and some are casual acquaintances that have deepened into real friends.
The beauty of being off work is of course, the freedom and lack of constraints on time.  Many of my friends have children, and are either on maternity leave, or work part time.

I used to meet up with a group who actually all knew each other from work at the primary school, but were all on maternity leave at the same time.  We used to meet at the local Wacky Warehouse, we would clamber about on the soft play with our children for an hour, and then brightly announce "snack time" and while the children would have juice and biscuits, we would gratefully sink into the oversized chairs, with a cuppa and any news or gossip we could share.  Affectionately known as "tot-time". Mainly because I took Dib-dab and had Kipper of known where we went every week, there would have been ructions to say the least!

There is even a chat on Facebook, where only we could see it, and we would arrange times to meet, and who was going etc.    From a simple once a week playtime for the children, this has become a real mainstay for me.  There are 7 or 8 of us who meet regularly with our children, and they range from Kipper who is nearly 7 to two 6-month old babies.

It has of course developed outside the Wacky! and the chat on Facebook goes on, there is yards and yards of it if you trawl back far enough.  We have had days out with children, we have had nights out without children but with wine!   Hopefully if the summer ever arrives, we will have a BBQ here with children, partners or husbands, and of course all our Wacky Women!  We might even get t-shirts printed - Wacky Women on Tour!

Family day out at Seven Stories

Bank holiday Monday, everyone off school, work etc.  we went to Newcastle to visit Seven Stories.  What an absolutely fabulous place,  a nationally accredited museum/gallery celebrating children's literature.  There are literally seven storey's to the building, it's an old mill apparently, on the banks of the river.  You enter at floor 3, which is (obviously) the gift shop, and book shop.

www.sevenstories.org.uk

Floor 1 - creation station, we made crafts which linked in with their exhibitions, Enid Blyton, and How to train your dragon so whilst Dib-dab read a book about dragons with his dad, Kipper and I made a compass for exploring with, just like the Famous Five!

Dib-dab reading about dragons

Kipper making his compass for exploring.

After the second floor was the cafe (which seemed very nice - the menu looked good, although we only had drinks)  and then the fourth floor was the Enid Blyton exhibition.   Mystery, Magic & Midnight Feasts!  I loved Enid Blyton as a child, particularly the Famous Five, and the Five Finder-outers, and The Magic Faraway Tree, so for me, this was really interesting.  The boys found the Slippery Slip slide from the Faraway tree, and stayed there whilst I wandered round reading extracts from her diary ( worked till lunch, played Bridge, pottered in Garden!)  Her typewriter was there, all carefully loaned from her collection, and lodas of original artwork and type-written pages from her original drafts.  There was a large shed with SS on the door, complete with a (felt) picnic lunch in there, and a cave for the Famous Five to discover smugglers in.

Round the corner there was a lovely Noddy room, complete with car to sit in, and little hats with bells on and yellow spotty neckerchiefs to wear.  it was lovely.

One floor up, and it was all about Cressida Cowell, the lady who wrote the Viking series How to train your dragon!  Have to say, I am not as familiar with this, although we did watch the Disney Pixar film a while back, but hadn't realised it was based on the book series.  Hiccup Haddock Horrendous the Third was a hero in training, and we were given dragon trail sheets to fill in as we went round.  We had to have viking names, so Kipper chose his as Death-or-Glory, Dib-dab was unanimously named Snotface! and Daddy Beerbelly completed the trio.  we were all too busy laughing to find one for me, and have to say, I wasn't worried based on the selections previously!

Snotface and Death-or-Glory

The sixth floor was all about the acquiring, storing & preserving of older books, and though interesting for me, it was a little too old for my two. There were a couple of computers there, but in use, so we went on up to the attic, where there was a gorgeous big wooden chair, and lots of curved benches facing it, and a lady, dressed like Noddy came and read us all two stories.  There was dressing up clothes, and dens made from what appeared to be clothes horses and sheets (like we used to make a Grandma's when I was little)  and lots of books that children could take into the dens and read.

Back into the bookshop before leaving, and the boys were allowed one book each - Mr Croc for Dib-dab, and Kipper chose the Magic Faraway collection (because that way he got 3 stories in one book!)

All in all, an absolutely fantastic day out, and I can highly recommend it to anyone.

George's marvellous medicine

This book was written by Roald  Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake.
My mum red the book to me and she used expression.
My favourite part was when Grandma had her hed sticking up in georges bed room
and georg said she's as dotty as a doughnut.
The part I didn't like was when grandma shrank.
The part I loved was when georg was maiking the medicine.
The part  I  hated was when george gave the medicine to grandma.


Written by Kipper, aged 6 &3/4

Dreaming of Grandma!

This week's 100WCGU was inspired by my lack of sleep last night!  The prompt was the sentence "the points were sharp".

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The pinpricks of consciousness broke through her sleep, and the points were sharp! 

The cry came again, “Muuuuuuuuuum!”

Wearily she slid out of bed and zombie walked into her son’s bedroom.

“whassa matter sweetie?” she slurred, trying to avoid the pitfalls of lego blocks.

“I had a bad dream!” the child in the bed sobbed, rubbing fretfully at his eyes, and sitting up, hair in disarray and covers crumpled at the base of the bed.

“It’s OK now, I’m here, I’ll scare the monsters away – invite me into your dream.”  She pulled him towards her in a special mummy cuddle.

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Earlier in the day, I had been priding myself on my excellent knack of storytelling, bringing the characters to life, drawing on all my acting skills, and making the characters fromRoald Dahl's George's marvellous medicine really come to life.  However, at half past midnight last night, as Kipper was so upset about Grandma, it didnt really seem like such a good idea. 

He asked me next time I read it, can I only use expression on George please?

Thought I had better add an amendment on here: Kipper has a Grandma, Nanna and Great grandma, and none of them are like the grandma in the book - just in case there was any confusion! (Sorry mum ;-)  )

The Sad Little Troll

So pleased that this is still going on, it is a lovely way to keep the brain cells working!  For those who don't know, this is a 100 word challenge for grown ups.  There is a story prompt, sometimes a picture, sometimes a phrase or short sentence, and you have to use only 100 words to write a story or poem in response to it.  Here is mine, in response to the prompt:

As the stream flowed gently down, the two friends reached ever higher on their tippy-toes to see over the fence.
"But dad told me it was this bridge."
"Maybe he is sleeping!"
The subject of their earnest discussion sat perched on a rock underneath, wishing he had enough courage to go up and join the girls.  He just wanted to be their friends and play with them.  He knew the voices well enough, Milly and Katie had played near his bridge all summer and he promised himself one day he would pluck up the courage to join their games.

About us!

This post maybe should have come earlier, but am just getting to grips with the new layout of Blogger.  Oh well, a quick remionder won't hurt ;-)

I am a mum of 2 boys, and fiancee of a 3rd (who is nearly 40!)   I am resigned to never having a pink, sparkly bedroom with a tulle canopy, but otherwise love my life! 

My eldest looks like Kipper from the Oxford Reading Tree books, hence the name. 

 And my youngest used to love Dip Dap on cbeebies, but both Mr housewife and me called it wrong, we said Dib-Dab, and he used to respond, so his nickname became Dib-dab, or dibble-dabble or any variation on a theme, and he would answer!

 

So they remain Kipper and Dib-Dab!!!

 

 



enter the timeslip..............

Well, now that the last 2 years have past in a New York Minute you will be wondering where all my extremely clockwork regular blog posts have gone to!  (coughs and looks down embarrassed)  well, my very valid excuse is...life got in the way! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :-) 

We shall have to pretend that you know everything that has happened, and I will carry on regardless!

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So, I have recently discovered Pinterest!  well, thats not strictly true!  I actually discovered and signed up before I left work, but really had no clue what it really was, and never bothered too much to be honest; but as I was discovering, more and more things online have a PinIt" button, and so one day, I pressed it to see what would happen!  Well, what resulted was an afternoon glued to the Internet, and a "ToDo" list a mile long, with DIY crafts, bakes, places to go and lemons to cut in order to clean my grout!!!!!  (yeah, really!)

In essence, it is a place where you can have as many virtual corkboards as you like, and each one can have lots of links "pinned" to it, with reminders of things you like, or need, or want to look at later.  In my defence, since I have discovered it, me and DibDab have played with edible finger paints, home made play-dough, and I am going out to buy co-ordinating fabric swatches, so we can make fabric bowls as gifts. 

Since Kate and I set up our Stay & Play playgroup, we have been looking for pre-school activities for our group, and have found a couple of websites with brilliant ideas, so my "craft board" on Pinterest is getting full with some lovely ideas.

 

 

The edible finger paints were fab, a really strange texture, but the colours were surprisingly vibrant, and it made really good handprints.  The best part was it didnt stain.  Even though little man wore an apron, it naturally ended up all over his clothes (and mine where he patted me to show off his work)  but straight in the washer, and no stains at all.   I got loads out of one batch, and was able to make all 7 colours of the rainbow, and we talked about colours and identifying them as we painted. 

For those of you not on Pinterest (as I know I have a huuuuuuge following, who will all be desperate to rush home and make this)  the recipe is:

 

3tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup cornflour

2 cups water

food colouring of your choice

Bung everything except colours in a pan, and gently heat till it thickens!   pop into seperate bowls and stir in your colours.  Thats it, as easy as that.  Not quite sure how it stores to be completely honest, as i put it in paper bowls, and so won't store it this time, but some little jars may work. 

 

well, thats it for now.  Time to go pick up Kipper from school and am sure he will want to paint when he sees whats out on the table, so more pictures later.