Worth the wait...

Well, we're halfway through the summer holidays now and have been busy bees, hardly having time to blog at all.

We've finally got around to doing 2 things that have been on my list since Mr J moved down to Bath....
First we visited the Roman Baths ( local residents can actually get in for free with a discovery card).
We spent the morning wandering around like tourists, but surprisingly took few photos, as we knew we could come back again whenever we felt like it!!

The other was to visit a local wood and find the Waterfall. I'd never visited Greyfield Wood before, we are lucky enough to have so many wonderful woods to walk around here, but friend had told me of the waterfall so we were intrigued.

The map gave no indication of a waterfall at all so we set off to explore.....

It was definitely worth the wait!!! We climbed the rocks to the top of the waterfall and ate our picnic.

What to do when your kids have too many toys!!!

photo from freedigitalphotos

Too many toys, can there really be such a thing? Well from a child's point of view probably not but from a parents then the answer is definitely yes!!! Christmas has been and gone and left hundreds of toys in its wake!!!! Theres a birthday in less than a month and the sheer volume of stuff is driving me insane!!

I've always struggled getting rid of toys in the past. As a single mum I've worried about not being able to buy more if we needed to and guilty about passing toys on. But on the flip side step families mean more places to get presents from (unfortunately one side uses buying stuff as showing love?) so enough is enough......

Rule One - if someone else bought the toy (nanny, auntie, great gran ..... ) and we have enough at home, ask if the toy can be kept at their house to play with there instead. Any ones sneaking through the net - my children are great at hiding things to bring home to mummy's - will be sent straight back with them next visit!

Rule two - we do not need a houseful of toys. The children can have 2 cupboards downstairs and a small toy box in their room

Rule three - the toy should at least try to be educational there is a great post on junk toys here. Working in a nursery has given me great insight here, LOTS of play things have educational value, stitching / threading promotes hand eye coordination, role play (dressing up, home area)can help us understand the world around us. Mark making (chalks, pens) can help children develop writing skills. Games such as battleships can even help children to use spreadsheets better when they are older....( B1, C3, co-ordinates). So our toys at home will fit into the following categories...

Small World / Roleplay - Cars, Horses, Dressup, Cooking

Imaginative Play - Dress up costumes

Creative - Sewing, Chalks, Fuzzyfelts, Drawing

Physical - Skipping Ropes, Bean bags

Rule four - Future Purchases must be as 'green' as possible. Are the materials natural?, Is it sustainable, does it have educational value, how long will the children enjoy this for, where will it end up - will it compost, recyle, be used again? What consumables will it use ( batteries etc). Will it prevent my children from enjoying 'the real world'?

Rule five - I will prep nannys as too what makes a good pressie and how it doesn't always have to be toys. Great examples at xmas were a sewing box, a mini tool kit (real tools not plastic) and a dinosaur apron and cookie cutters, I mean ALL children enjoy helping out in real life tasks and copying mummy /daddy, don't they!!!?

Rule Six - if it is broken toss it, if it is no longer played with or not age appropriate, donate it!!

These are my rules for my house, but hopefully there's a bit of common sense in there that you can all apply in your own house.

What tips do you have to share?

Milestones...

We've had a lovely few days, out in the autumn sun, walking and exploring the local tourist spots before they get busy at half term next week, re-exploring places I'd visited as a child. I'm so proud of what I've managed, maybe I should explain...

15 years ago (when I was 17) I had a stroke and was totally paralised down one side, I had physio and had to teach myself how to walk again. In hospital I told myself I knew I'd have beaten it if I could climb local landmark Glastonbury Tor. Since then its been too hot, too cold, I've had the children or had something important to 'save myself for' the next week! All very lame excuses, but that seemed quite reasonable at the time.

I year ago I told my partner about this secret promise to climb and we agreed to do it together, and STILL the excuses continued....
Last wednesday night as we lay in bed, I casually said to him, 'hey, instead of going to the castle tomorrow, shall we go climb the tor?'

So we did.

It was cold and windy, I forgot my camera. As we sat on the park and ride bus travelling to the tor we took guesses on how long it would take us to climb up , I guessed 1 hour 30 mins, P guessed 2 hours. So we set off with timer in hand...
It took us 10 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It also took us 30 minutes to get back down!

And what happened after? Did the world end? Was I too tired to collect the kids from school?
Nope!

Went walking in cheddar and I climbed this and several other hills...

New traditions

My focus seems to be changing these days, I'm still stupidly busy and somewhat disorganised but I feel that we need more in our life. I'm going to try and simplify the neccessary things so we have time to spend on new more simple activities. We started last night with a family campfire in the garden. We sat out for over an hour around the fire, wearing our ponchos and drinking hot ribena. Next time I'll have organised a toasting fork and marshmallows too!!! We all agreed, weather allowing we'll do this every week from now on.....