Being green is hard!

We all want to save the planet. We may not be signed up to Green peace or Extinction Rebellion, but very few of us are blind to the problems that face Planet Earth and the part that humans have had in the crisis.

So we should do something about it, right?

I love to read books about being green. My latest two are:

However, I find that a lot of people who write or blog about being green seem to live in their very own little utopia (I'd love to be corrected on this, so please feel free to comment). It's just that, while actions are suggested with optimism and energy, there's very little acknowledgement of how hard these changes are for people in the real world. We all want to make the changes, but it's not as simple as waving a magic wand.

So we should all shop local and seasonal, buy at farmers' markets or make use of those brilliant zero waste shops? We should leave the car at home and cycle everywhere?

Fantastic idea!

However:

• We don't all live in a metropolis where we use public transport to get to work and wander past little rows of shops with a grocer.
• We don't all have a lifestyle that allows us to get into town when the market is on.
• Most of us have to drop the kids off to school on the way to work, then rush to pick them up and get them to their next activity.
• We live lives where we balance work, family life, voluntary work, pet care, home care and maybe even a little self-care or sleep - there really isn't much extra time in there!
• Most of us live in places where public transport is shoddy at best and costs a fortune.
• For most of us, going to town (where the grocers and the Farmers' Market and the Zero Waste shop can be found) involves driving and paying for parking.

We all know that supermarkets over-transport and over-package their goods, but sadly they have developed to offer convenience and efficiency for those of us who live busy, rushed lives.  It's hard to walk away from that, even though we know it needs to be done.

Use less plastic and eat less meat?

I agree with both of these.

These are definitely changes we need to make to help our planet. However, again, we don't all live a life where that's easy to do.

Most of us live in families.

It's hard enough to change our own habits, let alone to change other people.

If you're making packed lunches for four, switching from pre-packaged (in plastic) snacks and products to home-made goodness is appealing, but takes time and planning. Equally, eating less meat requires you to learn new recipes, meals and ways of cooking, which need to be delicious enough to convince certain members of the family that get confused if a meal has no meat in it.

So of course we want to be greener, but let's just acknowledge that part of the reason we are in the predicament we are in, is because we are in a crazy spiral where lifestyles rely on convenience and convenience relies on lifestyle. Some of the changes we need to make will require big changes to our priorities and our lives.

Let's just acknowledge that this is not an easy thing for people to do.

Let's also get rid of the idea that the only way to make a difference is to go the whole hog and become a green, vegan, tree-hugging super-hero. I mean, hats-off to those green super-heroes, but let's remember that every little helps (oh no! I see what I did there!). If we all look at the problem and think that it's too big to solve, that there's no point because we can't do it all, then the problem won't get any smaller at all.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" Lao Tzu

 If we all do one small thing to make a difference, what a great big difference that will make. Once one change in your life has been successfully made, you can start to make another.

We're going to do this. We have to do this. But we can do it one step at a time.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

 

Anybody here like cake?

Hands up?

Yes, me too. And this particular cake is a bit of a sweet-toothed 80s bright coloured throwback, to a time when exotic fruit in a tin was the highlight of the week.

Making this seems a long time ago now, as it's two weeks since I last ate. 

(Not strictly true, but I am sticking to the diet pretty well and cake is not currently happening).

This cake is the perfect comfort food for a winter's evening.  Enjoy with custard.

Ingredients

butter (melted)                   100g

brown sugar                       1/2 cup

pineapple rings (drained)     440g can

Pineapple juice                    2tbsp

Cream cheese                    125g

butter (softened)                150g

caster sugar                        1 cup

rind and juice of 1 orange

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

self-raising flour                    1 cup

Method

1. Preheat over to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Tip the melted butter into a 24cm round cake tin, brushing it up the sides to grease. (If you're using a loose bottomed tin, like me, be aware that it will ooze out in cooking).
3. Sprinkle brown sugar over the butter and then arrange the pineapple rings over the base of the tin.  I popped glace cherries in the centre of each one for a really vivid pop of colour.
4. Mix the cream cheese, butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.  
5. Add the orange rind and juice, 2 tbsp of pineapple juice, eggs and flour.  Mix well until smooth.
6. Spoon the mix into the prepared tin over the pineapples.
7. Put the cake into the oven for 40-50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
8. Leave to cool for 10 minutes and then turn out carefully onto a wire cooling rack.

This is one of my creative endeavours this month in my year of creativity.  Considering I had five creative things to do this month I've made a remarkably slow start. 

The crochet is going well, but I'm not sure if I'll finish this month.  I have at least bought the bottles I need to make the wine. I haven't even begun to think about the cushion covers or the macrame and the stuff to make the little dolls is just sitting there waiting for some attention! 

On the other hand, I have been running two Beaver meetings and two Cub meetings via Zoom, I have a lot of Phonics videos on my YouTube channel, and the children are getting on well with their home learning. There's certainly been some creativity going on in the house, even if it hasn't all been mine.

Endangered animals masks made with Beaver Scouts

I really don't know the purpose of the cardboard fort or the Harry Potter x Victorian costume - sometimes it's best not to ask.

Charlie's tin can tealight candle holders that he made with Scouts.

Charlie's pelican, penguin, cat mash-up that he did for an Art lesson.

Why it's okay NOT to do Joe Wicks

No offence meant to Joe Wicks here.  I've done a couple of his workouts and the man is a legend.  The internet is bursting at the seams with activities that you can plug into or do at home at the moment.  There is so much choice out there.  The issue is that so many of us are trying to work from home and educate from home as well as just existing.  All these activities are a good source of inspiration for parents who are used to out-sourcing their children - gym classes, Cubs, swimming lessons, boxing and so on.  However, it does leave you with a vague sense that if you aren't doing Joe Wicks every morning, followed by online art lessons, online Steve Backshall, online Scout activities and online education, as well as downloading all the free resources being offered by the BBC, Twinkl and every other portal on the interweb, then you are somehow failing your children.

I'm here to tell you that this is not so.  

What is important is maintaining sanity and love within your family.  

In a time full of financial and health anxiety, in a time when people are concerned about their jobs and their family and friends, in a time when we are facing an unprecedented global pandemic, that's when we are all confined to our homes and cut off from friends and from the outdoors.  A walk alone in the woods is my choice of activity to re-balance and to restore my sense of self and optimism.  We normally have a healthy mix of society and solitude in our lives.  Time to think and time to talk.  At the moment we have some people forced into solitude, while others are denied it.  It's hard for our children too: used to the routine and society of school, time and space to run and jump, laugh hysterically at the daftest things, feel proud of themselves when they get the right answer or seek solace with friends if they don't.  Now they're stuck at home with only a limited understanding of why. 

I'll be honest.  I'm finding this hard.  I'm supposed to be self-isolated for another ten weeks.  I want to do a good job for the families I'm supporting as a teacher and as a Scout volunteer; I want to get the house and garden looking good; I want to build up my writing again; I want to get fit... all during this period of isolation.  What I'm learning though, is that looking after myself and my family is going to have to take priority here.  In the last few days I've had a deep sense of anxiety, unease and disquiet.  I have been irritable and tearful.  Miss Busy, who is very nine: noisy, messy and emotional, is finding the lock-down overwhelming and needing her mummy.  My husband, when he gets home from a busy and tense day as a hospital doctor, needs a lot of support too - for him, planning for the future helps him deal with the present.  

So I'm remembering that I need to prioritise cuddling with a film over replying to e-mails;  Playing a board game with the children over cleaning the floor;  While my to-do list doesn't get any shorter, reaffirming connections within the family, building our strength in this time of uncertainty, seems the more important task.  When this is over, like the flowers that grow back more vigorously after they've been cut back, we will be ready to bloom vibrantly.  When we look back, we'll think of 2020 as the year that made us.

So don't feel that you have to be busy all the time.  Don't feel that you need to keep up with all the activities and resources.  Don't worry about fancy-schmancy specially-created internet resources and lessons.

Do your best to keep up with the things that you have to do for your work and your children's education (don't worry too much about this - they are remarkable at learning when nobody is teaching them, and will also soon fill in the gaps when they get back to school).  Mostly though, it's okay to do the simple things, to spend time just being, and just connecting with your children.

Here are a few things you can do as a family: 

1) play with the kids - get the Lego or the doll house out and get down there and play with the children.

2) Do the housework together.  This one may be a harder sell for older kids, but I taught Mr Build-it to iron shirts yesterday (we had to submit a video for his Scout Skills Challenge), you're teaching them valuable life skills, and its definitely more fun when you do it together - and that's a life-lesson in itself.

3) Play silly games like charades and hide-and-seek.  A daft friend posted a video of herself playing noughts-and-crosses with her dog.  (ask and I'll tell you how - very amusing!)

5) Rediscover peaceful crafts that you can just sit and do together - drawing, painting, rock painting, crochet, knitting and sewing.  Or if those don't appeal - how about wood-work or creating miniature models for Warhammer or a model railway.  These things take time and lets face it, we're not going anywhere in a hurry, and you get the satisfaction of creating something.

6) Bake and cook together.  Explore those cook books and come up with some recipes that you can make.  (Forward planning is useful here as given the shopping limitations for most of us at the moment.)

Most of all, try to relax.  Don't try to do too much.  Press the "Reset System" button on your life.

Thoughts on "Home-learning"

Schools are closed and many of us are cooped up in our homes with our children.

Miss Busy doing yoga as set by her teacher

That's no bad thing.  We all lead over-busy lives, racing around from activity to activity.  While nobody wants this Coronavirus and we all wish it would go away, while nobody wants to be forced to stay indoors and not be able to work (and for many people - earn money), this time of enforced confinement may be the reset button they were looking for in their lives.  It's certainly a time for us to re-establish a connection with our children.  

Most of us leave the children's education to school.  We occasionally glance at or support homework, and we turn up at parents' evening, but we aren't really involved with their learning - that's school's job, right?  Now we are being asked to support and guide our children through all their learning tasks for a protracted amount of time.  Many schools are trying to support the parents and continue managing the task of educating by providing work each day and asking the children/parents to submit it.  As parents, how do we manage this?

First, I think it's important to remember that you are the parent and you know your child.  You have a few options here:

1) stick to the school timetable, or create your own strict timetable.  Use the school's materials or some you have provided or sourced yourselves.  You can either work with your child, ensure your child understands the task and supervise them, or rely on your child to stick to the timetable.

2) use the materials the school has provided, or materials of your own, but throw the timetable out of  the window.  Opting instead for a "as long as you get everything on the list done, you choose how long to work on it and when to do it" attitude.  This works well with children who are largely independent, but you can also encourage children to come to you for specific tasks or if they need help.

Miss Busy helped me out by trialling an activity I set for my Year 2 class.

3)  Ignore any "formal" learning materials.  Take this time to connect with your child, trust that they will fall into a natural rhythm and that they will be learning through living.  Encourage creative activities, but don't be too hung up on curriculum or formal lessons.  If you are following this option, you should let your school know your intentions.  During this time of shut-down there is nothing to stop you doing things your own way, but teachers, who are working hard to provide and follow up on set work will be concerned about you and your children if they don't hear anything.

They are also working on the 30 day lego challenge

I've personally gone for option 2.  My children are independent enough that they know how to access the work that school has set and are keen to complete it.  The main rule is that they must do these activities before they play any computer games or watch TV, but they can do them in any order and I encourage regular breaks.  We are only on day 3 but already the way they work has evolved.  To begin with, Miss Busy was trying hard to stick to normal school hours of working.  However, I noted that she was sneaking on to games on the computer in between school activities because she had finished them in less than the allotted time.  When I pointed out that she didn't need to wait until "the lesson was over" before moving on, and that she could start before 9am if she wanted to, she was liberated.  This morning she started at 7am, got all her school tasks done by 10am, played on the computer for an hour, made the lunch, and is now playing in the garden.  

Miss Busy's portrait of Henry VIII

Mr Build-it has loved the independence to work through tasks at his own pace and has very much enjoyed e-mailing his work to his teacher.  Today, however, he was traumatised by a music task which involved singing, and encouraged children to submit a video of them singing a song.  I tried to assure him that this was not compulsory and that nobody would even know if he had sung the song or not, but he felt that if school had set the task, be must complete it, even if he hates having photos taken or singing where people can hear him (despite the fact that he has a lovely singing voice and is happy to play the piano to an audience!).  There were many tears and he put off starting any of the school work for some time, to evade getting to the point where he needed to do the music.

So how to manage this process when you are also supposed to be working from home:

Steps to success:

• make sure your child has somewhere to work / concentrate / focus on whatever activities they are doing and the tools they need - sharp pencils, rubber, ruler, pens, art material, access to computer etc.
• check in with your child regularly to ensure that they know what they are doing, help them if they don't.  Depending on your child, it may be a good idea to have them working next to you as you will be able to help them focus.
• Ensure they take a break.  If they are struggling to focus, they need a change of activity, a breather or a snack.  In school they will be regularly moving from talk-partners to independent work, from carpet (whole class) to desk, snack time, assembly etc.  Up to year 3 they rarely sit still for more than about 20-30 minutes at a time.
• Once their fixed "work" is done, celebrate!  Whether this is by taking photos of the work to send to the teacher, sharing it with Gran via a video call, having an hour to play on the computer or a star on a chart.
• After this formal learning is done, make the time to spend at least an hour doing something with your children, whether this is a new hobby, gardening, housework, playing a board or computer game, reading, playing Lego, an exercise DVD or something completely different.  Spend time together and show that you value their company.

Covid19 - Time to stay at home

Since my last post, which unbelievably saw the traffic viewing my blog explode to more than 900, the government's advice has evolved rather drastically.  Like... from primordial slime to vertebrate evolution in just over a week. 

To start with, the schools were staying open for as long as possible.  The government was hoping that we would develop herd immunity without too many of our elderly or vulnerable people taking ill.  I'm not sure what changed their minds but somewhere towards the beginning of last week two terms became all important.  
Self-isolation - if you had any symptoms of the Covid19 virus at all then you should stay home from work for 14 days.
Social Distancing - if you had any underlying conditions or were older then you should keep your distance from people, working from home if possible.

Things moved very quickly at that point.  Most notable was the crazy panic buying.  Who knew that toilet roll would become such a valuable commodity?  Supermarket shelves were being emptied faster than they could be filled as everybody prepared for self-isolation or lock-down.

On Monday evening The Scouts announced that all face-to-face activity would be suspended until further notice.  Care homes closed their doors to visitors.  By Wednesday I accepted that because of underlying kidney disease and treatment with immune suppressants, I should probably stay home from work.  I wasn't alone.  The schools, which were still open at that point, began to creak.  Children with coughs were being kept home but more significantly any pregnant staff, staff with underlying health conditions, or staff exhibiting any symptoms of Covid19 were staying at home.  These home-workers began to prepare the work that would be needed for when (not "if" by this time) the schools closed and the schools struggled on with a reduced staff.  On Thursday that announcement came.  The schools would close on Friday evening except for the children of key workers.  Measures were then announced to support workers and businesses financially through the closures.  Interestingly, we now learn who the "key workers" are in our society.  The ones that we can't do without.  It isn't the financial sector.



Today, Monday 23rd March 2020, I got a text message instructing me to stay home and not go out for the next twelve weeks.  The NHS believe that if I were to get Coronavirus I would be at high risk of becoming extremely unwell.  Now it turns out I'm not going to be the only one who can't go out.  The Prime Minister has announced further restrictions.  Nobody is to go out unless absolutely necessary - which WILL be enforced.

In the meantime, I'm working from home, educating my children who are learning from home, Scouting from home.  So more on how we manage those things over the next few days.

Word games to keep kids entertained

Ever been stuck in traffic with kids in tow? On a long train or plane journey, or just in a queue? What if the batteries on the kids devices run out, or, even crazier, you didn't bring a screen to plug your child into?

What can you do if boredom begins to set in and you face the prospect of actually engaging with your offspring? The sure fire solution is... word games!

Here are three that we've just played this afternoon at my parents-in-law to calm the kids down as they descended into inter-sibling violence:

1) The Cheese Game - go around the circle. Each person says a sentence of a story, but each sentence needs to contain the name of a cheese: I know how to stay safe, I'll build a roquefort. At that moment Ementalle came around the corner.

2) Alphabet story: go around the circle. Each person says a sentence to make a story. In the sentence, each word must begin with a consecutive letter of the Alphabet. E.g. a brave cat died eating fresh grapes. It really gets you thinking about what constitutes a sentence.

3) The name game. Go around the circle. Each person says a famous name. The first name must start with the same letter of the previous surname. So for example if the person before me chose Boris Johnson, then my name would need to start with a J  e.g. James Cameron. If the somebody says a name where first and surname begin with the same letter, e.g. Peppa Pig or Marilyn Monroe, then the direction around the circle is reversed.

What word games do you play to keep things fun and entertaining with the children?

Mel's Murals

Murals are great.  They are individual.  They are fun.  They are art right there on your wall.

We are planning to have murals all over our house (not planning to move or sell in the near future!) to reflect our personalities and interests.  However, these things take time, and while the bedroom walls were painted last autumn, the murals for the children's bedrooms have taken a while to happen.

Mister Build-it wanted: a lifeboat, puffer-fish playing musical instruments and a frog on a lily-pad.  

To begin with I drew the life-boat in chalk:

After a while... I painted the top orange.  It was like that for a few weeks and he told me it looked like a hover-bus.

This weekend, my sister-in-law took Mr Build-it to the Grand Prix at Silverstone as a birthday treat (wow!).  This was my opportunity and my deadline to get the rest of the job done.  So I searched on Pinterest for some inspiration and then sketched what I thought the Pufferfish orchestra might look like:

I added it to the wall beneath the lifeboat.  In another corner of the bedroom I drew the frog on his lily pad.

Then I started painting...

Let it dry, do some other jobs (including starting to tidy and reorganise the bedroom).  Then came back and painted a bit more...

You'll notice the grey smudgy bit in the sky.  I'd tried to make the clouds a bit greyer, but they began to look like a horrific storm, I tried to rescue the situation but made it worse.  So I had to paint over that bit with one coat of the blue emulsion.  That's one of the joys of a mural.  If you make a mistake it's only cost you a bit of paint and some time, and you can just paint over and start again.

And then got in there with a fine paint brush to put the details in.  I know smugitude is not a good thing, but I am SO PROUD of myself!  Don't you just love it when the thing you have in your head actually turns out just as you hoped?! (That never happens when I'm baking or decorating cakes!)

If you're interested, we just used normal matt emulsion for the walls (no idea of brand or colour), then these are normal kids poster paints.

Want to see what I get up to when I finally get around to the other rooms in the house?

Packing to move house

Moving house is fun.

Ummm.... I'm not sure that's right.  I've heard that its one of the most stressful experiences in life.  It is a bit exciting though.

piles of boxes

I'm currently at the stage where I am surrounded by half-filled boxes.  We've ten days until moving day, and while I'm confident that we'll get it all done, the task is looking slightly daunting.  My six year old asked me to buy some oranges so she could make her own orange juice - and my voice may have gone up a couple of octaves as I very slowly and reasonably explained that we are trying to get rid of mess - not make more!

ready for the charity shop

Having a clear out:  I'm being quite brutal at getting rid of things that we don't love any more.  Our new house is a bit smaller than our current rented house, and definitely smaller than the house we sold in Scotland.  As we move from room to room I have four categories: recycle centre, charity shop, sell and pack.  Items for the first three groups are put into piles in the kitchen.  I'm taking photos of items to sell or to try and free-cycle and getting them straight on to the local car-boot type Facebook groups.  If nobody wants them in a day or two they transfer to the charity-shop or recycle centre piles.  When the charity shop and recycle centre piles in the kitchen are large enough - off they go!  Only things that we love or definitely use are making it into the packing boxes.

not even started on this room yet!

I've read that it's best to pack one room at a time.  That's not what we're doing.  We have boxes in every room and seem to be working on them all simultaneously, packing first those things which are non-essentials, for example warm coats and winter shoes, books, toys and games, DVDs etc.

Working hard not to pack those things we'll need over the next couple of weeks, for example things the kids will need for Beaver Sleepover, things I'll need for school work etc!

10 top tips to keep kids happy in the holidays.

I saw a very amusing post from the hilarious Hurrah for Gin.  Its about the six stages/weeks of the Summer Holiday, starting at positive and excited and descending through shouty and sweary and finishing with "rocking in the corner".  The replies to this post were all in agreement.  Many parents find the long stretch of the summer holiday quite hard work.  For some it's all about juggling paid and unpaid holiday from work with finding kind-hearted relatives or friends, or paying for holiday activities.  For others it's just not knowing what to do with these pint-sized people for all that time and feeling a vague sense of guilt whenever they are glued to a screen.

As you'll know from my post here on the 9th July, while I'm enjoying my long teacher school holiday I am also aiming to get a good head start on all my planning for next year as well as getting the classroom ready and organised.  To add further spice to the holiday we are also intending to move house during the final two weeks of the break, so there's an awful lot of clearing, sorting and packing to get done too.

Here are my ten top tips to keep the children happy in the holidays:

1. Plan a few special "extras" - new things or places to go.  We've cancelled our proper holiday in order to move house, but are going away for a long weekend to a Folk Festival, and I've booked them on a climbing activity and in for a snorkelling lesson at the local swimming pool.
2. Go out every day.  This doesn't need to cost much or indeed anything, and doesn't need to be a full day outing, but just breaks up the day into more managable chunks.  Examples are: go swimming, playdates, bike ride, grocery shopping, walk in the woods, geocaching, meet friends at the park, soft play, pick-your-own, skate park, play dates, free workshops at local nature reserves, libraries and museums.  Speaking of museums, use your holiday to be a tourist in your own back yard and check out your local cathedral, museums or walking tours.
   
3. Spend time doing something with your children at home every day.  Even if you are busy trying to pack your house, paint the walls, clear out detritus from kitchen cupboards, plan literacy lessons and create exercise book labels, weed the garden and do the ironing (all simultaneously if you are anything like me), make sure to set aside some time to be with your children, or be prepared to stop what you are doing every now and then if they ask you to.  We're not talking about lots of fancy "Pinterest ready" crafts here, we're talking about your time.  Things like: face-painting your daughter, helping them make cardboard puppets for a show and then watching the resulting show, baking cookies, cooking dinner, making jam (with the fruit you got from the Pick-your-own), reading together, playing a board game, doing that craft kit they've had in the cupboard since Christmas, having a water fight, making stuff from Lego, making bracelets with beads, collecting unsuspecting mini-beasts.
   
4. Involve them in your activities.  Yes, they can in fact help clear out the cupboards, they could even decoupage the pencil pots for your classroom, stick labels on exercise books and paint the walls.  They can't do everything, but often they'll be pleased to join in.
5. Get them helping with housework.  It takes time to teach little people to do new things.  They don't know how to polish a table, wash dishes, cook, work the vacuum, clean shoes or hang laundry.  That's not to say that they shouldn't be expected to do these things at Primary School age, it's just that it takes time to teach them.  During term-time schedules are often very hectic and its easier just to get the job done than to spend the required time with an apprentice.  Take the opportunity over the holiday to tutor your child in a couple of new tasks.  By the time you get to September hopefully they'll have mastered it and be able to get on with it with minimal supervision and time investment and it can become a new responsibility for them.  I'm also working on getting them to take a bit more responsibility around the whole house.  I find the "tidy up" thing can be a bit overwhelming, particularly for my scatter-monster six-year-old.  Instead this last couple of weeks I've gone for a fifteen-minute-hammer approach.  I set the timer, we all clean and tidy like crazy in our allocated room for fifteen minutes, and then the timer goes off and we stop and all inspect one another's progress.  One day we spend the fifteen minutes in the bedrooms, the next day each person selects a folded slip of paper with one of the communal rooms written on.  If, at inspection, it's clear that the tidier hasn't spent their fifteen minutes very productively, then they must do another 15.  I try to do this just before dinner time so that the house is relatively tidy for the evening.
6. Make them play outdoors.  Outdoor play is good.  It allows kids to socialise, connect with nature and get physically active.  Whether it's your garden, the street, the park, the woods or the beach.  Insist that your kids spend some time outside every day, even if it's raining (they won't dissolve!).  Sometimes this requires me to lead the way with a suggested (or instructed) walk, bike-ride or fruit picking expedition, other times they are out in the yard on their bikes before they've even had breakfast.  We're very lucky in that we are currently in the countryside with a large yard and field with safe access behind the house, I'm not sure how easy this will be when we move into a city, but even with a small yard you can set up swing-ball or a paddling pool, or encourage them to find a sunny spot to read or play outside rather than in their bedroom.
   
7. Guilt-free screen time - Don't feel guilty about letting the kids watch the TV.  Most of us watched the box during the holidays when we were growing up and we seem to have turned out okay.  My eight-year-old has a tablet with parental controls, and we have set him a time limit of 2 and a half hours per day for the holidays, a large portion of which is used up before breakfast.  This may seem like quite a lot of time, but as he is still making stuff, reading books, playing on his bike and being sociable the rest of the time I'm okay with it.  They'll occasionally put a film on or watch a bit of TV late in the afternoon too, and since they've usually done something with me, been out, played outside and done some housework by then, this seems absolutely fine to me.
8. Bicker-free zone.  Kids will be kids and if you have more than one, then it's almost certain that bickering will ensue at some point.  To keep this at bay try adding more children to the mix as often as possible.  They will get bored with each other's company, so arrange some play-dates with other children.  Also, don't be afraid to separate them.  If they are bored they will often gravitate towards one another, even if it's just to be annoying.  If you keep hearing bickering, insist that one plays outside while the other plays inside or has some 1:1 time with you.  The space may well spark some creativity and the time away from one another may provide new ideas for games or things to talk about.  Even if you are busy, I also find that the best way to diffuse an argumentative situation is to give some attention, so that's often the time I realise that I haven't been following my own advice numbered 2, 3 or 4 above, and quickly suggest a bike ride or trip to the swimming pool and then we all feel better.  If all else fails, put the TV on or plug them into a tablet!
9. Give them time - despite what I've just said about bickering happening when children require attention, I do think that children need time to just BE.  Running them from activity to activity and planning a full timetable through the holidays is both unnecessary and expensive.  They should be allowed to make their own fun and learn to direct their own time.  Creativity and imagination flourish when the mind wanders.
10. Keep it fun!  When you think back to the summer holidays when you were a child, what do you remember?  Do you have fond memories of the long holidays or were they an ordeal?  I have great memories of playing with my sisters, blackberry picking, playing outside in the street, doing a jigsaw with my mum, mum teaching me to make friendship bracelets, getting to go to work with my dad, chatting to the next-door neighbour over the fence... and I'm sure quite a bit of bickering with my sisters in between!  The point is that I remember the holiday time as being active but largely self-directed, fun and relaxing.

What do your kids get up to in the holidays?

Family fun in... London

 In October half-term we spent a few days exploring London.  We took them a couple of years ago, and decided it was time for another trip following our successful city-break to Venice at Easter.  Here are my suggestions for great things to do as a family in London, based on our trip and trips in the past.

Accommodation
Depending on your budget there are lots of options for accommodation.  Last time we went to London we took the caravan and stayed in an excellent site near Maidenhead (Hurley Riverside Park) from where we could visit Windsor and Legoland as well as catch trains into London for daytrips.  The time we went to London before that we stayed at YHA London Thameside at Rotherhithe, which offered an en-suite family room at a very reasonably budget.  This time around we chose a serviced apartment on Commercial Road.  This allowed us a good base to stay with the children, allowing them some space and freedom, us the option to self-cater and space to sit up and chat later into the evening which we wouldn't have if we were all sharing a hotel or hostel room.

 Activities - 
Here are just some of the activities that we've got up to on our trips:

• Bus trips - lots of them!  We've previously done one of the open-topped hop-on, hop-off bus trips, but found that the children weren't really in to listening to the tour guide, so it's a bit of a waste of money.  Instead we found the Number 15 bus from just outside our apartment on Commercial Road went right past Tower Hill, and St Pauls Cathedral to Trafalgar Square.
• Boat trip - we went on a boat trip on the Thames from Tower Hill to the London Eye, which was pretty awesome!
• The Emirates Airline Sky Ride over the Thames was also a great addition to our day.  We had been to Greenwich so it was a short hop to the sky-ride and then back on the DLR to Shadwell to get back to our apartment.
• The London Eye is a favourite for our two.  Over three trips to London we have been during daylight, in the dark, and this time at twilight.  It's nice to get a broad overview of London.  I'm convinced that C and Bug spend more time looking at the touch-screen interpretation computer thingy than actually looking out of the window, but I quite enjoy the space to admire London from above.
• Museums and Galleries - we have been to: the Natural History Museum - great for budding geologists and naturalists, and of course dinosaur and fossil enthusiasts.  We went on our last trip, but not this time, which was a disappointment for C who has been studying Mary Anning at school and was keen to see the Icthyosaur fossil that she unearthed on the Dorset coast; the Science Museum - we went here for a good look at the Space stuff and enjoyed an IMAX show about the view from the Space Station, and a moving theatre experience about the shuttle trip to the moon.  Disappointingly you have to pay extra to get into the interactive exhibits and the queue was phenomenal; the British Museum - it's such a huge place that it's a good idea to have a specific theme in mind.  We aimed for the areas that we knew would fit into the History Topics that C will be studying this year - namely Stone and Iron Age and the Ancient Egyptians.  The Audioguide picks out highlights and explains them; I visited the Horniman Museum when C and I were much smaller, there's an interesting collection of artefacts, and a small aquarium in the basement; the Docklands Museum - another one we did when they were toddlers, quite an interesting look at the history of this part of London with a great interactive gallery for the kids with plenty of things to play with; the National Gallery - we didn't spend long in here, having already been to St Pauls and the British Museum on this day, but we again had a specific plan - Bug wanted to see Picasso and C wanted to see Van Gogh.  We went for those areas, admired a few other paintings on the way in and out and then left.  The AMAZING thing about all these museums and galleries so far mentioned is that they are all FREE ENTRY - only asking for a donation.  Of course, they won't be able to stay free unless people donate - so please do.  Finally, Greenwich Observatory, where we went on this occasion with cousin Rachel - a great place to learn about clocks, navigation, longitude and latitude etc.  I don't think the kids got it all that much, but there were just about enough interactive bits to keep them busy while the grown-ups did some learning.
• Other great buildings - St Paul's Cathedral - You'd think that a Cathedral wouldn't be a great place to go with children, but ours quite like the huge soaring spaces, the paintings and statues and especially the audio guide.  They were very taken with the crypts, where Bug was delighted to find the memorial to Edwin Landseer who sculpted the lions in Trafalgar Square where she had been sitting the previous day.
• Camden Market, Covent Garden Market, Portabello Market, Spittalfields Market - Portabello Market is great for antiques but not for children, only go if you don't have them in tow.  Spittalfields Market and Covent Garden Market also not that great for little ones, though there are plenty of places to stop for coffee and cake.  Camden Market on the other hand is a wonderful place to lose track of time and spend lots of money.  I particularly like the clothes on sale here, and C and Bug both managed to spend a large proportion of their pocket money.
• Other spots - we didn't go into the Cutty Sark, but walked around it admiring from the outside; Trafalgar Square - a place to climb on the lions of course!  I love the signs - not forbidding you to climb, but warning you not to fall off!
• A Show!  This time around we thought that the children would be old enough to see a show,  We looked into Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Lion King and Matilda, and eventually settled on The Railway Children at Kings Cross Theatre.  It was wonderful, with a real steam train playing a leading role and chuffing into the stage at several points in the performance.