Of Mice and Lego

From Lego Star Wars Products

I already had a high opinion of Lego. I thought it was a good toy for teaching prospective architects and engineers anyway, and then they brought out the Star Wars sets. 

Working Mums (and a Dad)

Although I read with interest Gillian Tett’s review of three books offering successful women’s tips on being more successful, I probably will not order the books. I’m less interested in how to be more successful in the workplace and more interested in how to get into work in the first place and I feel that these women may not have much to say about that.

Why Not Just Go to Counseling?

I often come across people who feel bad in themselves (depressed) yet who are reluctant to go along to sort out their illness (that's what it is) with a specialist.

(I ought to add that there are two kinds of depression. One is purely physical. It has to do with chemical reactions not operating quite as they do in everyone-else and it may be that a medical check-up will suggest you should eat different foods which don't set off your mood, or that you have a physical condition which can be managed with medication. Here I'm talking about depression which is solely caused by underlying mental troubles. Also there is a big difference between counseling and therapy but I'm just going to bundle them together for the purposes of this blogpost.)

Half Term Holiday

Luckily Piglet is a keen baker. We have been catching up on The Great British Bakeoff on i-player and enjoying watching the beautiful concoctions the competitors come up with. I thought of this scheme which would occupy two days of the holiday in a useful and nourishing fashion:
Day 1: bake cakes. 
Day 2: invite other little piglets round to eat them. 

Mummy in the Museum (ho ho) - Excursion

Available from Hive.

Not only is it half term, the teachers decided to have extra celebrations by enjoying an INSET day on the Friday before. For once I realised this was coming up, instead of finding out the day beforehand, and was able to make cunning plans accordingly. I had seen that there is an obscure little Egyptology museum on the University of Swansea campus and this seemed so hilarious that it had to be visited. I envisioned some dark poky place with glass cabinets of dusty amulets.

What better time to go than in the lead up to Halloween! Some children on a trip to an obscure little Egyptology museum in darkened university buildings? I'm sure there must already be a film about it.

Eyetests for early years piglets

From Iederene's blog

I have sadly realised that I ought to have taken Piglet for an early eyetest. I thought that she would have her eyes tested at school, or that if there were a problem teachers would pick up on it. Now I realise I just should have taken her along to the optician like I take her to the dentist. After all, it's free for children. 

Late Roses

Usually there is some bright sunny leftover summer weather at the start of September. This year, it was a real autumn start to the school term with weather as soft and damp as a baby’s backside – necessitating hanging out laundry for three days to get it dry.

The roses seemed to like this weather. All of them made a sudden late show.

 









The Molyneux. (Guess what football team we support.)