sickness, museums, shopping and stuff

A week. Actually 8 days, so that's over a week. I am slack, I apologise. But it has been half term here in Monkey Land, so I've had the pleasure (take that with a pinch of salt) of Miss G around as well as the Ginger One. Miss G needs constant entertainment in the holidays, or she complains of boredom (which I think is healthy, so I like to leave her to moan for a bit) but her teacher had told the class about a children's fashion exhibition on at the museum of childhood and she seemed rather interested (if only to tell the teacher she had been) and I love any excuse for a quick trip down to the big smoke, and so off we went.
Ginger decided to have a cough, and spent the whole of Monday night barking like a dog, so I had second thoughts about taking him, but he climbed into the car and sat there, defiant. He was going to London.

Once we got down to the hotel, had some lunch and settled in, Ginge was much worse, so we stayed in the hotel with our PJs on and some medicine whilst Daddy and Miss G (and one of Daddy's friends) went 'up East'. Apparently the Museum of Childhood was (according to Daddy's friend) CLASS, Daddy did say the fashion exhibition was a bit random and he thought it hadn't been curated particularly well, but he bought a book (again - it's a bit weird, set out like a dictionary rather than a timeline, which would have been more useful, I think) so Miss G can tell the teacher next week. They did phone me from the museum to tell me I would have loved it, and so would Ginge. Well, we were VERY busy watching dinosapien, thanks.

Wednesday morning, we were off to the natural history museum to see the dinosaurs. Ginger could spend all day going backwards and forwards to the same bit - the t-rex, but we were on borrowed time before the train home, and I could only grab a flying visit to spend some money before we went home.





Since we got back, Ginge has continued to cough and I am now only functioning thanks to extra caffiene since he's taken to sleeping in my bed (he's poorly - I couldn't make him sleep in his own bed, that's just mean). I have got some new picture books to look at, which make my poor tired eyes ache less. I say picture books - if I could read Japanese, or if I was less tired and my head could make sense of anything they wouldn't be picture books. I bought the strip lovers one (great name!) after seeing a picture of one of the quilts in the book on flickr. And then I bought the Japanese craft book (it's amazing - full of projects involving houses, so cute) from the person that had made the quilt on flickr, as she has an etsy shop selling craft books and supplies (plus she's in the UK, so it was nice and fast to arrive).





And I got a box of amazing post from Beth which has me drooling and grinning and ever so ever so happy...



I have said it before, I'll say it again - Christmas is sneaking up on us. Those small gifts you have to give your kids' friends? Make them a patchwork drawstring bag following the tute on Ayumi's blog or one of the other great tutorials she has. They are really simple, I'm going to make loads and fill them with little bits and bobs and use them as 'emergency presents' because I always forget someone. I have made 3 so far. No, 4 actually. One of them isn't patchwork though. But I am getting a little addicted - sorting through my scraps, finding little bits I'd forgotten about. It's rainy day fun!