Winter morning playtime

They, being the Met Office and the TV weather forecasters, keep promising us snow. The snow seems to have other ideas, and instead we've had plenty of hailstorms, cold, wind and sleet, but nothing you could really, honestly call actual snow. Much to Squeaky's disgust, and my general relief. Her school is on the side of a pretty steep hill, with narrow streets all around, filled with badly parked cars. It's often the first to close if there is snow around, and childcare is an expensive hobby.

All the cold does have its up side.  We can wrap up nice and warm and head to the park. This time of year there's no staff around to try to enforce the petty "No Photography" rules, and hardly any other kids to get in the way either, so Squeaky gets free rein of the whole playground, though it means I have to put in double duty on swing pushing, roundabout spinning, hand holding, and trying to make the giant hamster wheel thing turn.

The park is almost always quiet before ten on a Sunday, most people are sensible enough to still be tucking into their cornflakes, and watching Andrew Marr (or Doc McStuffins, depending who has the TV remote). But it was pushing twelve when we arrived, after a quick shopping trip, and the place was still deserted.  Bliss.  Squeaky is getting more adventurous as she gets older, bigger and stronger, but she is still quite reluctant to have a go if there are much bigger kids around, she does best on her own or with one or two buddies to encourage her.  So a playground to herself gave her plenty of scope to stretch her confidence as well as her arms & legs.

I've never been a big fan of the spiderweb climbing frame. Maybe because we didn't have them in my 1970's West Midlands childhood, I dunno.  But I have to admit, it makes for some good exercise.  But please, indulge my memory and bring back the huge metal slide that burned the back of your legs in the summer, that's what I say.

We weren't completely alone though, an inquisitive little robin came over to see what we were up to, I think he was hoping we had sandwiches.  Sorry mate.

Oh, and then we popped into the castle for a quick visit to the ladies.  Any chance for an impromptu history lesson, and a quick explanation of colloquial English phrases. Pulling the chain makes so much more sense when you've actually seen an old fashioned loo, doesn't it?

Yes, I actually did take a photo of the loo. And you've looked at it.  That says something about us both, really, doesn't it?

We're joining in with Coombe Mill's Country Kids linky. Pop on over.   

Princess Batarella

Welcome to this special edition of Celebrities at Home.  Today, we are joining Princess Batarella in her special woodland retreat.  Come with us, and enter the world of the Princess.

Meet Mr Pump.  Mr Pump stands sentry at the entrance to Princess Batarella's magical home, ensuring that only those lucky few invited guests are permitted entry.  Woe betide anyone who tried to make their way past Mr Pump without permission.  Their fate is one that few would wish to behold.

Once past the gates, we meet the Princess herself.  Princess Batarella loves to groom her pony.  This magnificent steed is Princess Batarella's loyal companion, and accompanies her on regular tours of her woodland home, helping to negotiate the rough terrain and carrying all the essentials a Princess may need.

Princess Batarella shares her dwelling with a host of fairy folk.  Whilst shy, some of them will show themselves, given encouragement from the Princess.  The fairies put a lot of work into maintaining their domain, and each has cultivated her own garden to provide all the things a fairy community may need.

And after all that work touring her domain, there is nothing a Princess likes more than to tuck into a freshly toasted marshmallow.  Grown by the fairies, and toasted over a magical flame, of course.

OK, just kidding.  Our pumpkin at home, an excursion to Mountain View Ranch to join in their half term bushcraft festivities (in Hallowe'en costume, naturally), and a sneaky roadsign from Neath.  Just because.

Princess Batarella's tour is linking up with Coombe Mills' Country Kids linky.  Are you?

Aberdulais Falls #NationalTrust

I start feeling terrifically old when my best idea for a day out with Miss Squeaky is a trip to the local National Trust site, Aberdulais Falls.  But really, should I? Or should I just suck it up and embrace the fact that someone thinks our local heritage is important and interesting enough to be protected, looked after, and shown to the public?  I need to work on those middle-aged & middle-class hobbies a bit more, don't I?  I'm good at charity shops, I own a picnic blanket, but I just can't get into Radio 4.

Well, National Trust it is then.  Off in the car 20 minutes down the road to Aberdulais Falls.  And perfectly for me, a great mix of nature and heritage, and not a stately home in site.  Aberdulais Falls is, as the name suggests, home to a waterfall.  A waterfall in a narrow gorge, that through the generations has provided the power to a tin works, as well as other industries lost to time.

Now, at this point I could bore you with a history lesson, but that's not why you come here. Instead, I shall bore you with photos, and tell you about what we did.

We stared at the waterfall and marvelled at how loud it was, while I tried (and failed) to take artsy photos.

We (OK, I) giggled at the name of a piece of equipment used in the tin works.  Wobbler is funny, right?

We skipped out on the educational DVD showing, in favour of a picnic.  Obviously.

We practised our leaf rubbing skills, and tried to find as many different colour leaves as possible.  And planted acorns to see if they would grow into oak trees.  Probably not, as they were planted in gravel.

And I got up-close and personal with a bee.  Apparently this is one of Robbie the formerly-invisible-bee's best friends.  He, and a couple of friends were making the most of the mint garden outside the old school house tea rooms.  It might be traditional to have tea & a slice of Victoria Sponge at the National Trust tea rooms, but I'm not quite that middle aged just yet.  Next year, maybe.

So, we did something cultured and educational with our weekend, as well as being in the beautiful, healthy outdoors.  What about you?

We're linking our trip up with Coombe Mill's Country Kids linky.  Why not pop along and get inspired?

Tiptoe Quietly Through The Forest

We had another little adventure recently, Squeaky and I, along with PirateGirl, MiniMe and their outrageously glamorous MummyMandy took off to Mountain View Ranch, just outside Caerphilly for the day.  Somewhere I'd never even heard of until a couple of days before.  As with many of our adventures, it started out with hurtling down narrow country roads feeling like a rally driver before screeching to a dusty halt in the car park.

Blinging Birdhouse

For somewhere we never even knew existed, it was a definite hit.  The girls took off immediately into the outdoor play area, smeared liberally with sun cream, and spent a very happy hour climbing, swinging and sliding while we caught up with a chat and lots of cries of "higher, faster". We rented a trolley cart to pull along our bags and/or children, possibly the best £2 ever spent, as it seems an hour of playing takes it's toll on little legs, and even a picnic and decorating gingerbread men can't revive those achy feet.

There were three in the trolley, and the little one said...

We pressed on, exploring just part of the ranch's grounds, with the aim of exploring the Fairy Forest. Well, did you think three small girls would be able to resist that?  And truly, it was magical. A clearing in the forest, fairy doors in the trees, a few hidden fairies watching over us, the blingiest birdhouse I've ever seen, and even a grumpy looking frog as guardian of the fairy realm.  We could happily have spent all day in this one section, looking for more evidence of the fairies, and running around the trees.

We finally left the fairies in peace, and headed back to our cars, well and truly exhausted, with plans to return another day.  There's bunnies to be petted, ponies to be groomed, High Ropes & Segway tours for the grown ups (though I'm not sure my balance is really up to either of those), so we'll have to pop back in the autumn to explore some more, as I know there was lots of the site we didn't see.

But for now, I'm away with the fairies, as if you didn't already know.

I'm linking the fairy adventure up with Coombe Mill's Country Kids linky. 

Disclosure: I paid for our tickets to the Mountain View Ranch myself. I have not been asked to write this review, or offered any compensation for doing so.  All opinions are my own, and links are provided for convenience only, I am not a member of any affiliate schemes and will not receive reward for their use.

Life Lessons - Level Crossings

I remember in the dim and distant past of my childhood, amongst the Public Information Films about things like flying kites near pylons and always telling your mummy before you go off somewhere, seeing films about safety at Level Crossings.  Level Crossings themselves are a rarer breed than they were during my childhood, but if news items are anything to go by, there's still a need for education about crossing safely. There's so many videos shared on facebook and YouTube of people risking their lives in near misses on level crossings, and I'm sure in part it's due to their decreasing numbers.  To be honest, thinking really hard, I can only think of 3 I know the locations of; one just outside a holiday camp, one in an oddly busy town centre somewhere on the south coast, and one just up the road outside a local fruit farm.

It was the last of these that Squeaky & I, along with PirateGirl, MiniMe and Mummy Mandy found ourselves last week. We had planned to go fruit picking, but sadly the farm had a bad crop last year & don't do pick your own any more, so instead we had a happy hour sitting in a vineyard drinking coffee & eating ice cream.

It was, however, a good opportunity to teach the girls about Level Crossing safety, and what an opportunity. The crossing is a properly manual one, with gates you have to open and close yourself (and I'm too scared to drive over), and the line is really quite busy, with around 12 trains per hour going through. That meant that there was every chance of a train being due while we were at the crossing, giving the girls a real understanding of the crossing, what to do, and why.  And the trains came through, as if we'd planned it. Standing at the crossing gates, checking the lights, and waiting as they has turned to red, along comes a train, whistling through (ok, honking his diesel horn) while we watched from yards away. And then we waited, as the light stayed red, and a second train passed through in the opposite direction. Once the lights changed to green, the girls behaved beautifully, held our hands and walked quickly and carefully across to the other side where we'd parked our cars.

It's not something I would necessarily have thought about, but the increasing rarity of level crossings means that people are less aware of their correct use, putting them at more risk of injury or death.  Hopefully this impromptu lesson will be one our girls retain for the future.  Is this something you've done with your children?

Through Another's Eyes

We went on a day trip last week with the preschool group Squeaky's been part of over the last while.  Nowhere is more likely to appeal to me than a day at the seaside, particularly in Weston-super-Mare, as I grew up just down the road and spent far too much time there in my not-so-wild and mis-spent youth  And the thought of someone else coming up with an idea for how to fill an entire day of the seemingly endless school holidays is very attractive indeed.

So, onto the coach we climbed, and headed off for our adventures.  Riding the donkeys on the beach (it's the law!), a lovely lunch with my parents (who still live just up the road), a trip on the merry-go-round, and an afternoon in the splash park meant we had a wholesome and fun filled family day out in the sunshine.  It didn't cost us a great deal, just a couple of £s for the rides, and more importantly, it didn't take huge amounts of planning from me.

Our new friend Fred

In fact, Squeaky's very favourite part of the day was climbing onto, and jumping from a large rock in the playground of the splash park.  The local council spent thousands on converting some old wasteground into a fantastic park, and she's more interested in a rock.  Figures.

Rock, obvs

My favourite part, on the other hand, was chatting to some of the other parents on the coach, and hearing what they had to say about Squeaky.

I mean, I know that much like Mary Poppins, she's "Practically Perfect in Every Way", but when you hear from other parents that their children say to them that "Squeaky's a big girl, but she still talks to me, I like her", or that they report back every day on whether she was at the group that day, and are really sad on the days she's not there, it's quite a thing.  (And for full disclosure, as I was writing this longhand in my notebook at the local soft play, when a grandparent came up to me and complemented me on how nicely Squeaky was playing with her much younger granddaughter)

There are times when I worry about her, that she seems shy, or doesn't seem to know how to ask to join in a game with others, and finds herself left on the sidelines.  But really, it seems I have nothing to worry about.

Our day in the Somerset sunshine is linking up with Coombe Mill's Coutry Kids Linky.  

Castle Adventures

Raglan Castle

Living in South Wales, we're blessed with a fair number of local castles, in varying states of decay.  So Squeaky & I decided to have a little adventure to one of the castles we haven't visited before, Raglan Castle, in the hope of finding ourselves a brave knight or a handsome prince.  What? A girl can dream, right?

Anyways.  Raglan Castle, somewhere not far from Monmouth, and just off the A40.  Admittedly we went because Squeaky's school homework was to visit a castle & write about it, but I wanted to go somewhere different, rather than the ironworks owner's folly at the top of the road.  But an adventure is an adventure, even if there is an ulterior educational motive behind it.  Right?

Small archer

Pretentious arty moment

We were lucky to have a dry day, not many of those round here at the moment, and the sun even peeked out from behind the clouds for a while, just long enough for us to enjoy a picnic in the fountain courtyard.  We did everything it's posdible to do in the ruins of a 15th century castle.  Climbed to the top of the tower, imagined what it would be like to live in the bedrooms, shot imaginary arrows through the defences, went down into the spooky cellars (including a wine cellar! There was none left, I checked!), took pretentious arty photos through anything with a hole in, and were very glad we didn't have to use the soldier's toilet in the fortifications!

The soldiers' toilet

Squeaky and I came to the conclusion we'd love to live in a castle, but we'd prefer one with a roof and some glass in the windows!  It's just a bit too air conditioned for my delicate sensibilities.  That said, there's a lovely cafe, with free wi-fi.  All mod cons, almost!

Exploring castles can be a dangerous pastime, apparently.

Our castle adventure is linking up with the Coombe Mill Country Kids linky.  Show them some love!   

Playing in Bute Park

We had a little trip to Cardiff yesterday, Squeaky & I, and were joined by Daddy when he finished work.  We had a bit of a mooch around the shops, a face-painting treat, a nice cuppa in M&S, and a look around to see what we could see.

A slightly instagrammed moment. Be glad it wasn't my coffee

We spotted these lovely flowers in the churchyard at St John the Baptist, right in the middle of the city centre.  It's an odd place to find a church, though much like the castle, it's clearly been there longer than the shopping centre.  I've found the church often has amazing things to look at in the grounds, a couple of years ago they had massive poppies on their trees for Remembrance Sunday..

Once we'd finished shopping, we took off to Bute Park for a play, as it was a surprisingly nice & sunny day, and that's where Daddy joined us.  I'm not too great on history (or geography, science, art, etc!), but Bute Park is a mature park in Cardiff City Centre, sandwiched between Cardiff Castle and Sophia Gardens, and we could easily hear the cricket going on in Sophia Gardens when we had a little coffee break.

I'm a butterfly, Mummy!

Squeaky had loads of fun exploring the flowers, and being a butterfly, to go with her facepaints, though we're really not sure what variety of flowers they were (I can identify daisies, sunflowers, tulips, daffodils & roses. Other than that flowers are just referred to by their colours!)  There was also a spot of slightly reluctant tree climbing, frog riding, and claiming of a tiny red tree as her own personal shelter.  Why she needed a shelter on a sunny afternoon, I don't quite know.

This is my shelter, you can't come in.

Giddy-up froggie, giddy-up!

Can I get down now?

And then, in the middle of the park, completely without warning, we came across, errr yeah.  The Transplantable Living Room!  We just missed the performance, but what a strange thing to find in the park.  A whole vintage living room, set up in the park, but all planted up & edible, much of it donated by members of the local community. There was a TV with things growing in it, chairs with ferns coming out of the back, and my favourite of all, shoes with flowers in.  I wanted to sneak them away in my handbag, but realised it could get a bit messy.  I'm sure I could recreate that at home though, given time.  The whole thing made me smile, it was so unexpected, so fun, and they gave me a vegan chocolate brownie - sure way to win me over!

The Transplantable Living Room

Edible Telly, move over Nigella!

Shoes! I totally want these.

Squeaky, of course, found something perfectly to her taste.  A vintage rotary style phone.  Where she spent a good twenty minutes phoning me & daddy to tell us she was standing next to us in the park.  Strange child that she is.  Kept her out of trouble, I suppose!

Mummy! I'm on the phone!

We're linking up with the Coombe Mill Country Kids linky.
 

Glitter Pavement Paints - Pinspiration & #cbias

Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client.  I have not been told what to say, all opinions are my own. Links are provided for convenience, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive payment for their use.

I was given a shoppertunity challenge, and a free reign.  "Find something you want to do on Pinterest, and do it!"  So I took to my "Things for Squeaky" board, and once I realised I couldn't buy up the whole of Ikea, I opted for homemade glitter pavement paints based on this recipe from The Imagination Tree, as the weather's still reasonable, and it sounds like something different to do.  You can have a look at my shopping expedition here.

No nail polish! Shock! Horror!

The paint recipe was very simple - cornflour (or corn starch to those in the US), mixed with an equal quantity of water, gel food colourants, and loose glitter.  The glitter caused me the most headaches, I chose my supermarket by the one that normally has the best supply of craft stuff, but they didn't have any glitter. I called at 3 other shops that are normally really good for crafting, but still no loose glitter. Plenty of glitter glue, glitter paints & glitter pens, but no loose glitter. I ended up asking around at work & someone gave me a hint so I was able to get a stash of multicoloured glitter.

Cornflour is brilliant stuff.  I couldn't get Squeaky all that interested in the paint-making process, but she was still confused by the solid/liquid state of the cornflour & water mix.  I'm sure I've mentioned my fascination with Non-Newtonian fluids before (thanks to a couple of episodes of Brainiac), but the way the mix reacts to being stirred is just crazy.  It thickens up as you stir it, and then goes back to being liquid again when you leave it alone. To the extent that I could pick up a solid chunk of paint, and then let it pour back into the container.  I'm easily amused.

Adding sparkles

I made up the colours, mixing the food colourants to make 6 different pots of paint, and added a healthy shake of glitter to each paint pot, then headed outside with Squeaky & her friend Pirate Girl, who had come round to join in the painting fun.  It was a lovely sunny day, so just right for fun in the garden.

Investigating the paints

Old clothes on, and out for some fun.  I'd rearranged the garden to give us as much patio space for painting as possible.  As the paints were food based and non-toxic, I wasn't really worried what the girls decided to paint, as I was confident it would all wash off with a hosepipe. Or shower if it was the girls themselves.

Good job really, as they quickly decided to paint themselves.  It's the freedom of being allowed to do the daft things you're normally told off for.  But that's part of why I chose this activity - a chance to explore colour, texture and art in a different way.  You want to paint your face? Go ahead.

Or your feet.  Strange girl.

And my garden chairs.  As you can see, the paints dry to a chalky kind of effect, and while they run a bit, they're much neater than traditional paints, as they were quite thick.

It wasn't just mess though, we did make some bits of real art.

Sunshine

It's tricky stuff to get used to - it was quite hard to paint as you'd normally do, as the tension of dragging the brush on the floor made the paint thicken up (non-Newtonian again). So it was easier to dab than to brush, which is where the sponges came into their own.  I think I'd make the paints slightly thinner next time, they might be easier to draw with that way.

The girls insisted I made a second batch of paints, a couple of slightly different colours this time, so they could carry on painting themselves and every available surface - including a couple of slightly confused balloons.  What those poor balloons had done to deserve such treatment, I really don't know.

Our finished sunshine, and accompanying raincloud.  Quite appropriate for the Welsh weather really.  I think we might have a new Sian Lloyd on our hands with these two.

The glitter didn't show up quite as much as I'd hoped from the amount that you could see in the paints. It was quite subtle once the paints were used.  But I like the effect, and I think if there had been much more glitter involved, I would have struggled to clean up.

As it was, the patio cleaned up really easily, given 5 minutes with the hosepipe, the chairs much the same.  The windows took a little bit more work, because the paint had smeared on them a bit, but even there, we're not talking a lot of effort.  The girls cleaned up just fine with a handful of wet wipes & a quick dip in the bath.  In fact, by the next day, the only way you could tell we'd been up to anything was the food colourant which had stained my fingers while I was mixing the paints.  I'll wear gloves next time.